The removal of the homeless encampment in Humboldt Park exposes the urgent need for bold, systemic solutions to Chicago’s housing crisis. While city initiatives such as the Humboldt Park Encampment Housing Initiative provide short-term relief, they fail to address the root causes of homelessness. Displacement is not a solution — it merely shifts the problem to another neighborhood without addressing the underlying challenges.
To move toward meaningful change, Chicago should consider innovative approaches that prioritize dignity and long-term stability for unhoused residents:
- Repurpose vacant buildings: Transforming underused city-owned properties — such as old schools or libraries — into community housing campuses can provide shelter and access to mental health care, addiction recovery programs and job training all under one roof. These spaces could also cultivate a sense of belonging with communal areas for cooking and recreation.
- Create a mobile housing network: Introduce modular, mobile housing units that can be deployed quickly in response to housing emergencies. These tiny homes, stationed in designated safe zones, would provide flexible and immediate shelter while long-term housing solutions are developed.
- Engage short-term rental owners: Partner with short-term rental owners such as Airbnb hosts in a program to house unhoused individuals. In exchange for significant tax breaks, these units could be converted into temporary or permanent affordable housing, directly involving the community in addressing the crisis.
- Invest in prevention and empowerment: Expand rent assistance programs, eviction prevention measures and financial literacy initiatives. Additionally, establish a Homelessness Entrepreneurship Incubator to help unhoused individuals start small businesses, empowering them to regain financial independence.
- Involve the unhoused in decision-making: Form a community advisory board with representation from unhoused residents to ensure that housing policies reflect their lived experiences and needs. Transparency and collaboration will strengthen trust and create more effective solutions.
These proposals require collective action and imagination from city officials, community members and advocates. They emphasize not just alleviating homelessness but also addressing its root causes — rising rents, stagnant wages and inadequate health care.
Chicago has the potential to lead with compassion and creativity. This winter, let us ensure no Chicagoan is left without shelter or hope.
— Cynthia Serrano, Chicago
City needs fiscal responsibility
I love Chicago and want it to thrive, but the 2025 budget reflects a failure of leadership. Instead of meaningful cuts to address out-of-control spending, it burdens taxpayers yet again.
Tough choices are necessary to secure Chicago’s future, and delaying them only makes the problems worse. We need leadership that prioritizes fiscal responsibility and bold decisions — now.
— Charlie Davitt, Chicago
Brandon Johnson lied to us
When running for mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson declared he would not raise property taxes his first term in office. After presenting a budget plan with $300 million in property taxes, then $150 million and then $68.5 million and finally with no raise in property taxes, what else is he going to lie about?
This will happen as long as he is in office. One lie after another just to get elected. Was it worth it?
— Marsha Lieberman, Chicago
Spending must be addressed
The desperation shown by our mayor to solve the budget mess is startling. Scoop-and-toss is no solution — have we learned nothing from the past? — and will exacerbate the budget mess next year, which is projected to be much larger that this year’s budget gap.
Our local government needs to address the fundamental problem — spending. There are no gimmicks or tricks that will work here. Years of neglect have led us to a bloated budget and underfunded pensions.
Let’s address the root cause of the problem.
— Dean Gerber, Chicago
Why no job cuts first thing?
I’d like to congratulate Mayor Brandon Johnson for his budget cuts. However, I question why these cuts weren’t in his first budget. The $3.8 million in city job cuts should have been a no-brainer.
— Richard Prince, Chicago
The mayor’s tune has changed
You’re taking the Beatles a little too literally, Mr. Mayor!
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street.
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat.
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
Cause I’m the Taxman.
Mayor Brandon Johnson certainly is singing a different tune than what we heard in his campaign bravado.
— Lindsay Resnick, Chicago
Toni Preckwinkle a true leader
I wonder if the residents of Chicago ever regret not electing Toni Preckwinkle as mayor in 2019. I certainly do. Her record as president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners is particularly impressive given the mess she inherited when first elected to that post in 2010.
One can argue the city of Chicago is a different animal, but there is no substitute for political and organizational competency. Electing novices because they make us feel good or appeal to special interests never leads to a positive outcome.
Chicago deserves and requires better.
— Laurence Calinda, Chicago
Focused on climate change
The White House is frantically trying to “Trump-proof” President Joe Biden’s legacy.
What concerns me most is Trump-proofing Biden’s efforts to rein in climate change. Climate change is the overarching global threat to the survival of civilization as we know it. There will be no second chance if we fail.
Biden’s successes in promoting sustainable energy — facilitated by the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act — have been significant. They have benefited state and other jurisdictions, business and industry, individuals, public health, and the economy nationwide in red states and blue states alike. The staunchest Donald Trump supporters have happily fed at the trough. There’s no disputing that. Facts are facts.
But unfortunately, Biden’s successes have been inadequate and even diminished by counterproductive actions such as supporting new fossil fuel leases, development, and infrastructure. Our greenhouse gas and other climate-changing emissions are actually increasing, and we are far short of meeting our pledges and goals. Moreover, we are increasing fossil fuel exports, which does not exonerate us from the pollution they cause. Climate change doesn’t care where fossils are burned.
It’s more important that ever that we strengthen, not weaken, our climate goals and work aggressively to achieve them.
— Carol Steinhart, Madison, Wisconsin
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