Workers demolish major homeless encampment by Dan Ryan Expressway ahead of DNC

City workers demolished a major homeless encampment by the Dan Ryan Expressway early Wednesday as the city prepares for next month’s Democratic National Convention.

Residents of the tent city, which was on a grassy patch of land between the expressway and the 1100 block of Desplaines Street, said that officials had stopped by multiple times to warn them of the upcoming clearing of the site. All occupants were offered resettlement in city-run shelters, particularly at the former Tremont Hotel off the Magnificent Mile, where many from the encampment are now living, according to the Department of Family and Support Services.

Residents who haven’t taken up the offer of relocation say they don’t know where to head next. Carrying their belongings in bags with them, multiple former homeless residents of the tent city lingered in the area Wednesday afternoon after the demolition.

Brent Blanton, 57, from Oklahoma City, said he had lived in the tent city for about a month. He didn’t think he was eligible for relocation to a city shelter, as he believed the offer was only extended to longer-term residents of the encampment.

“I don’t know what to do,” Blanton said, adding that he may try to head to New York City.

City officials said in an interview with the Tribune that all present at the encampment had been given the chance to connect with local shelters, but only 29 individuals identified as “regulars” were offered access to beds at the former Tremont site.

“I thought (the deadline) was tomorrow,” said Nyah Williams, 33, who has been living in the tent city for over a year. “I’m not sure where to go.”

The removal of the encampment was fast-tracked in time for the DNC because of worries that security officials with the convention could suddenly request the tent city to be evacuated, leading to a  “traumatic” displacement of the occupants, said Maura McCauley, managing deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services.

However, health and safety concerns at this particular encampment had also informed their decision to clear it and connect residents with more permanent housing options, McCauley said.

The DNC is scheduled to be held from Aug. 19-22.

But in a post-Council news conference Wednesday, Johnson emphatically denied his administration’s earlier statements attributing the action to the DNC, a direct contradiction of McCauley’s statements.

“We offered people a place to stay, and most of them took it,” Johnson told reporters. “So this was not a response to the DNC. Because guess what? It’s not like because the DNC is here that there are not homeless people in the country. And it certainly doesn’t mean that homelessness is going to go away once the DNC leaves.”

Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, a progressive who has become a frequent mayoral critic, questioned why Chicagoans were being moved for “a political elite.”

“There’s just something about that that I think tarnishes the integrity of the values of Chicago,” Vasquez said. “I understand if you’re hosting something, you feel like you’re inviting people, you want to make the place look as best as possible. What this move is inherently saying is, ‘These are undesirable people who we don’t want anyone to see.’ That’s not what Chicago is about.”

Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, whose ward includes the Dan Ryan encampment, followed the mayor in denying the recent action was “at all” because of the DNC.

“We actually initiated (the sweep) about three months ago based on being out there, based on speaking with some of the advocates,” Ervin, a Johnson ally, said. “Because at the end of the day, people were looking for meaningful shelter, right, which is what I think that they will come across. The conditions out there were squalid and horrible, and I think it is the right thing to do.”

Johnson shrugged off the notion that Ervin asked his administration to sweep the camp, however, instead quoting Chaka Khan to reporters: “I do it naturally.”

Then he responded to notion that other residents of the Chestnut Street shelter were being displaced by saying, “There are instances where room is made, but in this instance, I don’t know how they’re coming to that conclusion.”

By noon Wednesday, nothing was left of the encampment but a flattened field of dirt. The city’s cleaning teams had arrived at 9:30 a.m., by which point all occupants had evacuated.

As the last few outreach workers piled into vans and drove off, bulldozers and workers from over a dozen Department of Streets and Sanitation trucks continued their work along the block.

Wire fencing materials sat in the back of multiple vehicles in preparation for the upcoming walling off of the site, which officials said would be in place indefinitely.

Patricia Nix-Hodes, director of the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said that it is very positive that the residents of the Dan Ryan encampment are being connected with permanent housing, as “no one should lose their place to stay due to a major event like the DNC happening.”

However, she expressed concerns about possible permanent closure of the site, which she said could cut off homeless people from a well-known place to shelter that has been relied upon for more than a decade. The encampment is centrally located in the city, which allows occupants to access central transportation routes, service providers and employment opportunities, she said.

“It’s common for people to move in and out of homelessness, and people lose their housing and become homeless every day,” Nix-Hodes said. “Permanently closing the spot and making it unavailable to people in the future really doesn’t address homelessness. There’s not enough housing in the city. There’s not enough shelter in the city. So it’s not a solution to just make space unavailable.”

Twenty-five former residents of the Dan Ryan encampment have moved into a city homeless shelter at 100 E. Chestnut St., a building that previously housed the Tremont Hotel and then the Selina Hotel before its conversion at the end of last year.

“The shelter is not our final goal here,” McCauley said. “We’re really focused on helping people move into long-term, sustainable housing.”

Previous occupants of the Magnificent Mile shelter have resettled in order to make room for those being displaced from the Dan Ryan encampment, McCauley said. Officials held “accelerated moving events” to try to connect residents from the winter shelter program — which was slated to end June 30 — to new housing options. The majority have found a place to live, officials said.

This Chestnut Street shelter is the locus of the city’s overall “summer encampment initiative,” which is underway at eight tent cities across Chicago including the Dan Ryan site cleared Wednesday.

Occupants of other encampments will also be offered rooms at the Tremont, McCauley said. And one other demolition is scheduled: a tent city along the North Shore Channel near Bryn Mawr Avenue will be permanently closed and fenced off July 30, she said.

After living in the Dan Ryan encampment city for six months, a 49-year-old man from the South Side, who asked to not be identified by name due to an ongoing legal case, said that moving into the Tremont shelter a week ago has brought him to “the next chapter” in life.

“I got hope today, I’ve got more hope today than yesterday when I got here,” he said. “I’ve paid taxes since I was 17, and this is the first time I’ve had help from any source.”