Plans to close Humboldt Park homeless encampments spark outrage

The city plans to clear a major homeless encampment in Humboldt Park early next month, according to the local alderperson.

Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, shared on Facebook on Friday that the Humboldt Park encampment would be formally cleared on Dec. 6. After that date, Chicago police and the Chicago Park District would begin to “enforce” the municipal code’s existing prohibition on overnight stays and tents in the park, Fuentes wrote.

In the post, Fuentes wrote that encampment residents would be offered “access to support services” as well as the option to move into housing or low-barrier shelters, or shelters with fewer rules for entry. They added that outreach workers and service providers would be at the park on Dec. 6 to provide emotional support and connect residents to resources such as health care.

“This milestone reflects 18 months of dedicated efforts to address systemic barriers, provide individualized care, and ensure that every person has access to dignified and secure living situations,” Fuentes wrote Friday on Facebook.

A group of 20 outreach workers and nonprofit leaders have since signed on to a joint letter criticizing the plans as potentially harmful to the homeless community, which was sent on Monday to Fuentes and Chicago’s chief homelessness officer, Sendy Soto, by Shiloh Capone, executive director of the homeless outreach nonprofit Street Samaritans.

The letter detailed concerns regarding the “expedited timeline” of the planned encampment closure, the lack of sufficient “housing pathways” for residents and the potential for criminal enforcement of the sweep.

“Measures such as sweeps, property confiscation, and penalties for life-sustaining activities create harm, erode trust, and move us further from solutions that address the root causes of homelessness,” the letter reads.

Soto could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Fuentes’ chief of staff, Juanita García, wrote in a statement to the Tribune Tuesday evening that despite the letter’s claims, the encampment closure is “far from expedited” as a part of the ward’s “multi-pronged, collaborative approach” to address homelessness in partnership with other city agencies and community organizations.

Three “Accelerated Moving Events” have been held in Humboldt Park over the past year and a half, where encampment residents could work with case managers workers to locate housing options. One hundred and six households have been connected to housing pathways in this manner, according to García.

“We deeply value the work the organizations signed onto this letter do to support our unhoused neighbors and appreciate their thoughtful advocacy for a housing-first, trauma-informed approach,” García wrote in the statement. “Our focus remains on connecting encampment residents to resources that support their transition to stable living conditions while addressing public safety and public health concerns.”

Since the summer, the city has cleared a number of homeless encampments as part of a larger initiative to close such sites down and relocate residents to shelters or other housing. Advocates for the homeless, however, have criticized such strategies as insufficient and potentially traumatic for encampment residents, emphasizing that the only solution for homelessness is permanent housing.

Sergio Ortiz, a community outreach specialist with Street Samaritans who has worked with the Humboldt Park homeless community for 18 years, said that when he stopped by the encampment on Tuesday, 65 to 75 people were still living there.

When Ortiz first visited the park after news of the closure broke, he cried “just to hear the fear,” he said.

Even among Ortiz’s clients who have been connected with housing through Accelerated Moving Events, many are still living in the Humboldt Park encampment — “they’re still waiting, still in the tent, still waiting to get matched, still waiting for the keys, still waiting for documents to be processed,” he said.

Most of his clients “do not want to leave the Humboldt Park community,” he added, which has made them resistant to shelter options in other parts of the city. There are no homeless shelters in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, although Fuentes is advocating for one to be established.

“They do not want to go to (a) shelter,” Ortiz said of many of his clients. “They’re pleading for us to be out there with them, because they don’t want to leave and they do not want to get arrested, all at the same time.”

Even the outreach workers at Humboldt Park were “caught … by surprise” on Friday when they found out that the encampment would be closing in two weeks, Ortiz said.

Monday’s joint letter criticized the abruptness of the closure, noting that the overlap of the two-week notice period with the Thanksgiving holiday weekend could add “further strain to an already overburdened outreach workforce during a time of acute staffing challenge.”

“As organizations embedded in this work daily, we have witnessed how rushed closures without viable alternatives disrupt relationships with clients, undermine trust, and jeopardize the health and well-being of those experiencing homelessness,” the letter reads.

In her emails to Fuentes and Soto, Capone wrote that the letters’ signers hoped to “collaborate” with the city in order to “collectively support a more deliberate and inclusive approach to this closure.”

One of major concerns raised in the letter was the potential enforcement of the encampment closure by Chicago police on and after Dec. 6, which they referred to as “criminalization.”

Though Chicago police officers will be present on Dec. 6 as the encampment is cleared, they will not “serve as the first point of contact for unhoused individuals,” according to García. Their role will be “to assist in encouraging individuals to access shelter or relocate while respecting their dignity,” García wrote.

“The unhoused residents remaining in the park on Moving Day will engage directly with their caseworker or outreach worker, representatives from DFSS and CDPH, 26th Ward staff, and only then CPD if necessary,” García wrote in an email to the Tribune.

“We are committed to a human-centered process that prioritizes support and does not criminalize anyone.”