Letters to the Editor
Over the past several weeks, the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and our partners have received credible reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents harassing residents at eight shelters and six street-based locations, detaining at least 29 people.
For years, the Trump administration and its allies have attempted to vilify people experiencing homelessness. From the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grant’s Pass v. Johnson decision to President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on homelessness, our national leaders are framing homelessness as a personal failure rather than the result of deliberate policy choices.
The truth is that homelessness is a choice we made as a country by systematically excluding people, especially Black and Brown communities, from housing, jobs, education and the ability to build generational wealth.
What is happening now in Chicago and in Washington, D.C., is carefully calculated racism and classism used as a tool to sow fear and division and define who “belongs” and who does not.
Meanwhile, the administration is slashing health care, food assistance and housing, even as rents in Chicago rise three times as fast as wages. In Illinois alone, more than 500,000 people could lose health care coverage, and over 400,000 may lose food assistance.
Just a few days back, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced drastic shifts in its funding priorities away from proven solutions like permanent supportive housing. This change could push 170,000 households nationwide out of their homes. Yet this same administration dares to punish people for the homelessness they are actively creating.
In South Shore, federal agents indiscriminately smashed through doors, leaving those already living in substandard housing with nowhere to return to. There is something uniquely cruel about criminalizing homelessness while simultaneously fueling it.
Each new raid and policy intended to strip someone of dignity or safety is another test of who we are as a country. We must reject the false narratives that blame our neighbors for the homelessness they were pushed into. We must demand our local leaders invest in real, proven solutions because everyone needs a safe place to call home.
Contact your members of Congress and ask them to stop HUD’s changes, and check out our website, chicagohomeless.org, to see what else you can do to support our neighbors experiencing homelessness in this moment.
Doug Schenkelberg, executive director, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness
