Ahead of DNC, Mayor Johnson puts homeless on the street to make room for tent city occupants
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is putting unhoused people back on the streets to make room for relocated tent encampment occupants who are being moved before the Democratic National Convention next month.
More than half a dozen people told the Sun-Times that they were thrown out or fear they are about to be ejected from a shelter in a former hotel off the Magnificent Mile — as city officials begin to clear a highly visible tent city abutting the Dan Ryan Expressway.
A domestic violence survivor, a recovering alcoholic and others with anxiety or chronic medical conditions were among those kicked out of the hotel over the past week, according to interviews.
Several people said they were thrown out without first being allowed to gather medicine or belongings.
One couple has been sleeping on the sidewalk across from the former Tremont Hotel at 100 E. Chestnut, which has housed more than 100 individuals since November under a $6.5 million contract with the city.
A new city program will use 60 of the former hotel’s rooms as shelter for residents from several encampments, including the “tent city” sandwiched between the Dan Ryan Expressway and the 1100 block of South Desplaines Street.
The Desplaines encampment will be permanently fenced off on Wednesday, according to Brandie Knazze, commissioner of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services.
Knazze has previously said the city was clearing the tent camp out of concern that the Secret Service could order such an evacuation for security reasons just before the convention. She has said that a program housing dozens of Tremont residents, many since winter, ended earlier this month.
Her spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about the shelter.
Residents say they were blindsided.
On Tuesday, Barbara Steen and her husband, Daniel, said they didn’t know where they would sleep after Daniel was discharged from Tremont over the weekend.
One housing option would be thousands of dollars a month, Barbara Steen said. Other options included putting the married couple of 18 years into separate shelters, she said. The couple has since been living on the street not far from the hotel, she said.
Steen, 48, said the city contractor, Equitable Social Solutions, appears to be finding ways to quickly discharge people staying at the hotel.
Another couple discharged from the Tremont last week have been sleeping on the sidewalk across the street.
The woman, 40, who asked that her name not be used for fear of retaliation, said she was initially thrown out in pajamas and slippers without crucial belongings like her medicines or her purse. After she persisted, she said she heard a staffer with the city contractor say, “I’m sick of this b—— asking for her medicine and her wallet.”
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do next,” said the woman, a domestic violence survivor, as her boyfriend laid in a sleeping bag next to her on East Chestnut’s sidewalk.
Several others who stayed at Tremont, known most recently as Selina Hotel, corroborated the woman’s story.
Allan Lacey, 62, said the woman appeared to be “tricked” into thinking she was going to be placed into another shelter and even showed up to a meeting with the city contractor’s staff in her pajamas before being discharged.
Lacey said he was nearly thrown out on the street before he appealed because of multiple medical conditions, including congestive heart failure.
“I said, ‘You’re going to put me on the street and I have a medical condition and I’m 62?’” he said. “I have the heart of an 80-year-old man.”
City records show that Equitable Social Solutions has contracted with DFSS since 2022 and has been paid $90 million over 12 deals. The Kentucky-based company founded in 2021 has run some of Chicago’s migrant shelters and opened the Tremont site in November.
The contractor did not return messages seeking comment.
Several residents said the sudden end of the Tremont program came as a surprise.
An official at the city’s family and support services department acknowledged in an email to staff that the process lacked clarity.
“Unfortunately, this led to confusion with our provider and as a result the communications to residents has been bumpy,” department official Maura McCauley wrote last week.
A man, 40, tossed from the shelter last Wednesday said he also was misled to leave his room with the promise that he would learn about a possible relocation to a North Side shelter.
When he met staff, according to his account of the story, he was told he would not return to his room and that he was being thrown out because he “denied housing,” which he said is not true. A recovering alcoholic who’s been homeless for about a year, he’s now staying temporarily with a friend.
“They discharged me in the most ridiculously conniving and rude way,” he said. “It was cruel and unusual.”
Chicago Police joined private security guards on site last Wednesday, emerging from the shelter as two men moved their belongings onto the sidewalk. They told a Sun-Times reporter and photographer that the city was throwing them out and they had nowhere to go.
Johnson promised when he campaigned for mayor to fund more housing for the city’s almost 19,000 homeless and backed a proposal to raise real estate transfer taxes on expensive property. The plan, a ballot initiative known as Bring Chicago Home, was rejected by voters in March.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) supported that initiative, and blasted what he saw as a double standard in clearing the encampment before the DNC: “I didn’t think we would go from ‘Bring Chicago Home’ to ‘Hide Chicago’s Homeless,’ but here we are.”
The Tremont situation highlights a need for more funding to address the problem of the unhoused, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless said in a statement.
“The need to move some people experiencing homelessness out so other people experiencing homelessness can move in is yet another sign that there is not adequate funding for shelter, services and permanent housing in the city of Chicago,” the group said.
As of Monday, a dozen tents remained in the Desplaines encampment.
Amy Barney, 48, had been staying nearby in a small camp at 16th and Union streets when she was invited to Tremont. But only for the short term as she said she was told she’ll have to leave sometime next month.
“What?” Barney said. “Democrats have never seen a homeless person?”
