Chicago Tribune: Uptown tent city homeless move west of viaduct as city plans renovations

By Elvia Malagon & Tony Briscoe

As joggers and families walked through the Uptown neighborhood on a sunny Sunday morning, Carol Aldape sat in an electric wheelchair and sorted through a storage bin of her belongings under a crumbling viaduct near Lake Shore Drive.

She found a pair of leggings she had been looking for and stopped to eat granola bites for breakfast. Her two dogs, Chief and Bella, watched from outside another orange and gray tent.

“You know the cartoon with the final straw, and he’s holding on,” she said. “Well, seems like ours just broke. And sure this place needs fixing up, but sure there are a lot of low-income people that need housing.”

Aldape, 68, has called a tent pitched under the Wilson Avenue viaduct her home since May. The area is known as tent city, but the homeless people who have taken up shelter there were forced to move out after a federal judge ruled last week that the city of Chicago could move forward with a construction project.

The project includes plans to create bike paths under the viaducts, which would shorten the sidewalks, and calls into question whether the homeless people would ever be able to return. The viaducts are expected to close Monday, and construction could last until March 2018.

The challenge over the plan is expected to continue in court. A hearing is scheduled Monday regarding a complaint the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless previously filed against the city.

The city had proposed moving the displaced people to Pacific Garden Mission, a shelter nearly 8 miles south. But the homeless who were part of tent city didn’t move far.

Volunteers with Uptown Tent City Organizers picked up their tents and belongings and walked less than 500 yards west of the Wilson viaduct. Volunteers also pitched newer but smaller tents. Some of the people living under the Lawrence Avenue viaduct were expected to move to that area Sunday as well.

Brien Cron, a local advocate for Uptown Tent City Organizers, said he thought the group had a right to set up the tents on the grassy area along Wilson Avenue between the sidewalk and the road.

“This is a public right of way, so we are evoking that right as an Illinois state resident to use this area as a public way for our homeless people that are living under the viaducts,” he said.

Andy Thayer, an activist with the group, said the location was also chosen because it would keep the issue of homelessness visible.

Organizers on Sunday were having difficulty squeezing all the tents into the space, prompting leaders to huddle and make the decision to expand closer to a bus stop at the northeast corner of the intersection.

Some described the move as chaotic. Others said they were worried about disagreements between the two encampments. But all were united in their gripes about leaving the viaducts.

Outside each tent was a picket sign planted in the ground, reading: “Housing is a human right!”; Stop harassing the homeless!”; and “$ for housing, not policing.”

Just north of the new encampments, Jesse Tolwinski placed his tent away from the group, under the shade of trees just west of the viaduct where he had been living for six months. Water bottles, a lawn chair and a small outdoor grill were just outside his tent. Other residents of the informal tent city had warned him that the city could force him to leave this spot, too, but he said he was willing to take his chances.

“I’m stubborn, I ain’t going to move,” he said. “If they lock me up, at least I’ll have a roof over my head, and they have to feed me.”

South of Tolwinski’s encampment, Aldape’s new tent was smaller than the one she used under the viaduct. The only thing that fit was a makeshift bed that her dog Bella quickly jumped on top of while volunteers continued the move. Volunteers began placing Aldape’s belongings in a second tent.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Aldape told a volunteer as she stared at her things near the curb.

Aldape wants to stay in the Uptown area; it’s where her doctors are located and where she previously lived with assistance from the government. She is waiting for housing at an assisted living facility, but she won’t accept anything unless her dogs can come with her.

Her friend Mark Saulys was going to store some of Aldape’s belongings in his new apartment. Last week, he got the keys to an apartment in Rogers Park that he obtained through a government program.

Saulys, 56, joked that he might keep an office for the group. He had been living in the encampment for more than a year, and he was in charge of all the donated tents. He said the group gave him a sense of community, and he thought the environment was more helpful than staying at a shelter.

“Pacific Garden Mission, you wouldn’t send your worst enemy there,” he said.

Before he became homeless, Saulys lived on the city’s West Side. He had planned to take a biking trip in the country’s Northeast, but he never managed to leave.

“I got stuck,” he said. “You think you’re going to be homeless for a short period.”

As his friends continued to sort through their belongings, a van from Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago parked under the viaduct. Saulys loaded his belongings into the van and was driven to his new apartment.

At the Lawrence Avenue viaduct, many broke down their tents, packed their belongings and waited for trucks to move them to the easement along Marine Drive.

Others, though, refused to leave, saying the city had promised affordable housing vouchers by the time the construction was set to take place.

Among those who planned to stay were Diane Rubo, 54, who has lived underneath the viaduct since December after disagreements with her landlord. Rubo, who collects disability benefits, said she needs surgery for disks in her neck and back, which has prevented her from working.

Adding to the stress of the situation, the South Side native said she doesn’t want to return to the rampant violence of her old neighborhood.

She and others said they’re staying underneath the viaduct to protest what they see as a broken promise, and their message is simple.

“Work with me, not against me,” Rubo said. “Why don’t you want people to have good housing? Put one of their children in our place: Would they want them treated like this?

“They tore down the projects, put them on the street, but didn’t want to do anything for them,” she said.

Rubo, who wore a silver crucifix necklace, said her faith has kept her grounded.

“This is only just a scratch, but it won’t shake me,” she said. “Because I have an unshakable God.”