Tent City Set to Bloom as Uptown Homeless Shelter Threatens Closure
City & State have failed to come up with funding to stop closure of shelter near Lake Shore Drive viaducts “tent city”
A Press conference will be held today concerning the impending closure of a North Side Housing & Supportive Services (NSHSS) shelter just before Christmas. Tent City to bloom just outside the shelter, illustrating the “alternative” that city and state politicians’ failures to act have led to. Activists are demanding one-to-one replacement for any NSHSS shelter beds lost.
The press conference will be held Tuesday, December 13, 2016, at 941 W. Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, at 10 A.M. Those in attendance will be Homeless residents of Uptown, clergy, and representatives of Uptown Tent City Organizers and North Side Action For Justice.
The two-year-long state budget impasse between Governor Rauner and House Speaker Madigan has meant that the state has failed to come up with the $100,000 that NSHSS says it needs to keep the 72-bed shelter at 941 W. Lawrence open for the year 2017.
During a protest at his office on October 3rd, 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman pointedly refused to introduce an ordinance into the City Council to make up the $100k gap, a drop in the bucket compared to far more frivolous measures that he and his ally, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, routinely fund.
Activists accuse Cappleman of using the state budget impasse as a cynical maneuver to further gentrify the ward by pushing homeless people out of the neighborhood through budgets cuts and city workers’ harassment of the homeless.
Lisa Morrison Butler, Commissioner of the Department of Family & Support Services, bears direct responsibility for refusing to stop the harassment of the homeless which is conducted under the guise of wasteful, frequent “cleanings” of the viaducts. As with so many appointments by Mayor Emanuel, Butler is totally lacking in qualifications for the job she was given (and has frequently admitted her ignorance), having a background primarily in public relations.
The closure of the North Side Housing & Supportive Services shelter would compound an already dangerous situation for the city’s homeless. On any given night, the viaducts underneath Lake Shore Drive in Uptown are currently filled to the brim with homeless forced to live there in tents. Closure of the NSHSS shelter will mean yet more tents in more public areas of the ward and city, and a greatly increased threat of disability and death for our neighbors who are homeless.
