Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is moving ahead Wednesday on a plan to get the homeless residents of a controversial Gompers Park encampment into housing.
City officials laid out their plan Tuesday for an “accelerated moving event” at the Northwest Side park where people have lived in tents for months. The delayed effort’s “north star” is to get the encampment’s 29 residents into permanent housing, but the city will not be asking people to leave, Chief Homelessness Officer Sendy Soto said.
“We want to ensure that they are receiving the services and that this does not feel like a displacement for them, but rather receiving a benefit and an opportunity,” Soto said.
The planned flood of city resources into the encampment puts Johnson in the middle of a tense debate over the park encampment that has played out in packed community meetings and City Council public comments. Some nearby residents have long called on the city to clear out the encampment, while others insist the people living in Gompers Park must get a say over where they live, even if it means allowing them to stay.
At one October meeting of North Mayfair and North Park residents, city leaders told a frustrated crowd they had reached their capacity on the accelerated moving events that condense the process of getting a person into permanent housing. But after months of waiting and a recent weeklong delay, the plan is moving ahead now.
Encampment residents will be able to “virtually tour” apartment units and select one during the event staffed by an array of city agencies. The move-in’s cost the city about $30,000 per household — potentially near $1 million at Gompers Park, if all residents take the offer Wednesday — with most money going toward rental subsidies, according to Maura McCauley, acting commissioner of the Department of Family and Support Services.
Residents will also be connected with furniture and assigned case managers. The move-in process can take 30 to 90 days, a period in which residents are offered shelter placement, but can also return to their tents, McCauley said. In other accelerated moving events, 94.1% of residents got housing, according to an August 2023 audit by Inspector General Deborah Witzburg.
The event could lead to “no one at the park,” Soto said. Encampment residents will have the choice to stay if they want, and some may turn down the housing offer if the city does not have access to units in neighborhoods they want to stay in, she said.
“Being homeless is not a crime,” she said. “Homelessness is not an issue that can be solved at one park. It has to be solved with the right revenue, with the right amount of housing stock, and we’re working toward that, but we’re just not there yet.”
Threats to federal funding from President Donald Trump’s administration threaten the city’s ability to expand homelessness support work, Soto said. She blamed last month’s brief federal funding freeze for delaying the event a week.
Addressing homelessness is a key focus for Johnson, who strongly backed an unsuccessful bid last year to raise an estimated $100 million earmarked for homelessness services by raising taxes on real estate transfers over $1 million.
Ald. Sam Nugent, 39th, said the city’s Wednesday effort is “long overdue,” but praised the plan as a “win-win” for encampment residents and park-goers alike. Another campsite in Nugent’s ward along the North Shore Channel was cleared last summer and later fenced off by city authorities.
The encampment in Gompers Park is a safety issue, Nugent said. She cited three dozen Fire Department service calls since last year and several recent fires.
“There’s been a lot of drug use, there’s been a lot of alcohol use, and it’s really not a safe environment right now,” she said.
She said she is optimistic that residents will take up the housing put forward by the city.
“They’ve been asking for permanent stable housing, and that’s what they’re going to be offered.”
