Displaced during Pride Month - Chicago Reader

Just Neighbors examines the city’s homeless encampment sweeps, focusing on the human impact of a fragmented, interdepartmental process.

At the beginning of June, while Chicago’s LGBTQ+ community was gearing up for Pride month, Ray was sorting through gender-affirming belongings, trying to figure out what to keep and what to give away. The 39-year-old resident of Logan Square was preparing for the city to close their encampment on June 12.

“It’s hard to be losing your stuff,” they said, “especially with this group of us who are pretty genderqueer.” The tent they sat in served as the camp’s dressing room: A mirror was propped in a corner amid piles of clothes, cushions, eyelashes, and shoes. Many of these items were shared among residents, had been collected over time, and were difficult to come by in unhoused communities. “Life can be very hard, or sometimes impossible, if you don’t have these things that help you identify, whether it be makeup, hair, a certain type of underwear, your breasts,” Ray said. A pitcher with a flower-shaped spout made the “keep” pile. “When poured correctly, that’s the closest to a shower we can get in this space,” they explained.

Ray and approximately eight residents had lived in this encampment, on the southeast corner of North Milwaukee Avenue and West Logan Boulevard, since winter. The closure had been in the works for months, with consistent communication from Alderperson Anthony Quezada’s office to the residents that they could remain on the land until the Chicago Department of Transportation was ready to begin construction on what will become a public plaza.

In the lead-up to the closure, Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) workers regularly visited the camp to offer snacks, water, and connections to any available shelters. A few days before the Reader first visited the camp, Quezada stopped by, as he had occasionally in recent months, and encouraged residents to stay connected with case managers as they wound through the city’s Coordinated Entry System (CES) for housing. Ray was frustrated; they said that on previous visits, the alder had promised that the residents would be connected to permanent housing by June 12, but now, he was “singing a different tune.” However, over several emails to the Reader, an unnamed Quezada staffer wrote that they “did not promise or guarantee placement in permanent housing.” They acknowledged that although all residents of the camp had completed the housing intake process, none had been matched to any housing as of June 8. “The demand for these housing resources significantly exceeds the number of units available citywide.”

Instead, on June 12, the ward would transport residents to “alternative living locations,” including shelters, if accepted, and would arrange for temporary storage of personal belongings as needed. “Additional context:” read the end of one email, “This is not a punitive enforcement action. It is the closure of a public construction site that must be secured for a long-planned infrastructure project.”

Inside a tent home at the encampment
Credit: Katie Prout

That wasn’t much consolation for encampment residents like Ray. “It’s hard for us to consider the next space to go,” they said ten days before the closure. “This community is very welcoming of queerness, and it’s allowed us a bit of comfort in feeling like we’re safe.” If they and the other residents understood they were not getting permanent housing in June, Ray said, they would have made plans to leave long before this. A few days earlier, when a DFSS worker showed Ray pictures of the shelter on offer, they began having traumatic flashbacks. “It looked just like inside of prison, from the color of the floors, to the sheets on the bed, to the location of the window, the bunk beds,” they said. Ray worried that any shelter the city had to offer wouldn’t be safe for their authentic gender expression.

Ray was very upset with the alder and with DFSS. They said they’d been shouting, in their words, “barking,” at some workers from the city. But in a previous life, Ray had been a nurse; they said they knew what it was like to be on the other end of very angry people who were physically or mentally struggling. Why was this housing and encampment sweep process so confusing? In recent days, mutual aid groups and housing advocates had begun showing up to offer the residents support, but Ray wondered what took them so long. As they read a copy of “The last days of Legion Park, before the city swept it” (published in the Reader’s May print edition as “‘How the hell can they decide what my needs are?’”), Ray wondered aloud if their camp could also get an accelerated moving event (AME). “We definitely deserve the opportunity to use those same resources,” they said. Although Legion Park residents didn’t have keys in hand the morning the city forced them to leave, a month after the March 17 sweep, 16 of 20 former residents had housing. “That’s a beautiful thing to hear about,” said Ray. “It’s very uplifting to me, [to hear] it is possible that [by] doing the right things and maybe making some noise, you can potentially get that result.”

Could Quezada delay the neighborhood’s construction project and give folks at the encampment time to get permanent housing? Ray wondered. If not, could the alder find them a temporary option that was still local, where they could have permission to live until permanent housing came through, and “would allow us to be part of the community, like we are?” Ray asked. “I mean, they listed us as ‘residents’ on that sign [the notice of closure sign Quezada’s office fixed to a nearby fence], so we’re residents of this community. Can you allow us somewhere that we can be able to not feel like we’re being pushed out?” Ray liked living in a queer-friendly, queer-visible ward, and they laughed about being a camp of mostly Black people in a neighborhood that has seen rapid displacement of racial minorities over the last 20 years. “I’m regentrifying for my life,” they chuckled. “I’m a hipster now.”

In the final week before the sweep, supportive groups like Parks for All, the Orange Tent Project, and Logan Square Mutual Aid (LSMA) continued to meet with residents. Quezada had a phone call with camp residents and members of the mutual aid groups about the planned closure. The next day, the mutual aid members, with the camp residents’ direction, wrote Quezada an email. Would the sweep be postponed until residents had access to an AME? If not, would the alder identify alternative spaces residents could safely move to, and would those spaces have portable toilets and electricity? The email was posted on social media by LSMA, along with calls for the broader Logan Square community to donate cash aid to the residents. (On an update to the post dated June 11, LSMA shared that all funds raised for the encampment residents had been distributed to them “directly and evenly.”)

During that same week, the camp received more visits from DFSS workers and the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness. Workers from the alder’s office had picked up residents and driven them to scope out three different locations in the ward, all public spaces, where they could relocate with the ward’s support. (When asked if DFSS participated in this effort to relocate residents to other public spaces, DFSS spokesperson Linsey Maughan wrote in a statement that “DFSS has no part assisting in the relocation of residents from an encampment,” but on the day of a closure, DFSS does offer to transport residents to available shelters if the residents accept them.) The location Ray chose, a viaduct in the ward, lacks electricity, but it does have a portable toilet.

[Ray] laughed about being a camp of mostly Black people in a neighborhood that has seen rapid displacement of racial minorities over the last 20 years. “I’m regentrifying for my life,” they chuckled. “I’m a hipster now.”

“I’m gonna miss this wall,” Ray said, pointing to a colorful wall of murals and graffiti tags behind the camp. It was June 11, the day before the sweep. “Gonna miss Jason’s little bitty-ass tent. It’s a pretty street right here, Milwaukee and Logan.”

Ray continued to pack up their camp with the help of mutual aid members, who brought food, water, packing supplies, and vehicles. The air was humid from the night’s storms, and the camp was slick with mud. Periodically, Ray took a break to cry. Their goal wasn’t to just move—it was to clean up the camp as if they were moving out of an apartment at the end of a lease. They were also gonna miss New Wave Coffee, they said, the cafe across the street. The staff were friendly there; they let residents use the bathroom and charge their phones. Every morning, Ray walked in and got two cups of ice for free. “It’s hard to find a place that treats the homeless like they treat everybody else,” they said.

The exterior of New Wave Coffee
Credit: Katie Prout

The day before the sweep, Ray was still frustrated with the alder and the city, but less so. They hoped Quezada, a first-time alderperson, whom Ray called “that young man,” was learning about the city’s closure processes through the experiences of this camp. It’s like Quezada said himself, Ray pointed out, referring to the closure notice put up by his office, “we’re a resident of Logan Square, this community, whether of this encampment or of a condo on the top floor.” Ray credited the notice for alerting the mutual aid members now moving belongings in the mud. Ray was appreciative of them, too, and amended their previous statements that questioned where that community had been until now. “They didn’t show up late; they showed up on time.” One member in particular had Ray’s gratitude. “She is the best thing that ever happened to me,” they said through tears. “She did everything she said [she] was gonna do. I didn’t know what to say or how to do nothing about this—she helped.”

The topic turned to Pride. What did it mean for Ray, a queer unhoused person, to be proud of themselves during the queerest of months, as they prepared to dismantle their home? “Pride is something that’s for you, yourself,” they answered. “I can’t allow myself to not feel equal or the same as others. I can’t allow myself to wait for others to be proud of me, because that don’t happen often. It’s for me and not nobody else.” Ray was proud of advocating for themself and other residents but said they wouldn’t feel true pride until the move was done.

On the morning of the sweep, DFSS workers were on site offering food, water, and transportation to a shelter. The Department of Streets and Sanitation was disposing of what remained of the camp, but the residents were already gone. According to a statement from DFSS, one did accept the offer of a shelter and had moved there earlier that week. According to a statement from Quezada’s office, another had moved in with a housed friend. The rest had “relocated to alternative locations.”

Across the street from where the camp had stood, the workers of New Wave kept making coffee. “We were always happy to help keep [the residents] fed, warm, and hydrated,” wrote Dave Easterly, a barista at New Wave, later over text. “Everyone was very respectful about asking for what they needed and giving us the space to do our jobs as well.” Sometimes, it was stressful, Easterly admitted, like when a resident or visitor of the camp came in during a mental or physical health emergency. He and other workers weren’t trained for those situations and “didn’t fully have the resources to help people when they needed it most.” Given that stress, why help at all? “Because they are human beings lol,” Easterly replied. “I’m not Christian, but I think about Jesus a lot and how someone like him would’ve acted. Life isn’t about shooing people away when they need your help. You can either provide what you have, or redirect to others who are more equipped.”

Meanwhile, over at the viaduct, Ray and several mutual aid members were busy setting up a new camp. Periodically, Ray was overcome with emotion. There were piles of wigs and some chairs, a hair dryer, tampons, a broom. Ray wanted to get things right; other people in need, especially queer people, were sure to come through. Mutual aid group members placed a tent on a platform, and Ray hurried over to help secure the flaps. Together, they raised the tent up.

Displaced during Pride Month – Chicago Reader

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