Residents to Denounce Police Sweeps vs. Homeless With March on Alderman’s Residence
“Since police and Alderman Cappleman have brought these issues to where the homeless and most vulnerable sleep, we have decided to bring it back to where Alderman Cappleman sleeps,” said Ryne Poelker of Uptown Uprising, one of the march organizers.
Uptown residents charge that Cappleman is directly complicit in the attacks on poor and working class residents of the ward, working hand-in-glove with wealthy real estate developers, taking their campaign contributions in return for promoting policies that hurt many 46th Ward residents:
** By voting to close 1/2 of the city’s mental health clinics;
** By promoting the closure of several low-cost housing options in the ward for those who are at risk of being homeless;
** By advocating for use of public money (TIF funds) to subsidize commercial and residential developments for the wealthy, rather those in most need;
** By allowing the sell-off public assets, like the Stewart School, for luxury developments, even though community assemblies solidly backed the re-use as low income housing and a public use space; and,
** By harassing existing social service providers in the ward, such as trying to shut down the Salvation Army food trucks feeding the poor.
