The sponsor of this petition, 39th Ward Neighbors United, and the undersigned call on Alderman Nugent and Mayor Johnson to maintain the established city policy against breaking up encampments and to reject any request to criminalize homelessness by forcibly displacing current or future residents of Gompers Park, people who have nowhere else to live.

The purpose of this petition is to lay out the context for the upcoming Accelerated Moving Event (AME), clarify the difference between an AME and forced displacement (which have been conflated in some media coverage), explain why we believe that forced displacement is harmful to our community, and demand that the rights and humanity of all residents of the 39th Ward be protected regardless of their housing status.

Historical Context

Over the last few years, a group of unhoused people have lived in a tent encampment in Gompers Park, near Pulaski and Foster on the northwest side of Chicago. In 2024, some concerned neighbors formed a group called the Restore Gompers Park Coalition to advocate for an Accelerated Moving Event (AME) and enforcement of park hours, with the intention to “restore” the park by permanently clearing its unhoused residents. An AME is now scheduled for March 5, 2025.

In the week of February 17, 2025, during a brutal cold snap, city agencies took multiple actions against the encampment that were cruel and counterproductive to the goal of housing the encampment residents. Some encampment residents had recently moved from their tents into newly installed yurts which were safer and warmer. The Park District, with support from the Police Department, confiscated the unoccupied tents on 2/19, and then two days later destroyed and disposed of the yurts and all property inside, leaving the displaced residents with nowhere to stay. City spokespeople cited fire hazards to justify the removals, yet fire extinguishers were also confiscated, and these actions increased the risk of frostbite, hypothermia, and freezing, which claim the lives of multiple unhoused Chicagoans every year. On one of the coldest days of the year, the city used resources to remove tents/yurts rather than using those resources to help keep people warm and safe. Despite a petition advocating for warming buses in the area with over 700 signatures of support, no warming buses or housing options were offered at the time.

AME vs Forced Displacement

AMEs are events that rapidly offer housing and services to people experiencing homelessness. The events consolidate several steps of the housing process into one day, reducing the overall time it takes to move into an apartment. At an AME, people can select an apartment, receive furniture, and enroll in services. AMEs are an excellent opportunity to connect people to resources that they otherwise would not have access to.

While we welcome the upcoming AME and the potential benefits it offers the Gompers residents, it is not a permanent solution to homelessness in Gompers Park. AMEs are usually unable to house 100% of participants; apartments are limited, especially in areas that are in-demand. If AME participants cannot select a unit that meets their needs, they may choose to remain in the park to stay close to support systems of food banks, case managers, doctors, employment leads, religious communities, and friends. Additionally, more people are newly experiencing homelessness each day, and some will continue to be displaced into public spaces like Gompers Park in the future due to shortage of affordable housing, resources, and services.

Because there is no quick or easy solution to homelessness, communities often turn to forced displacement to remove the visible evidence of homelessness. This is exemplified by the practice of following up an AME by clearing the remainder of an encampment with police force and closing the park to future tents. This kind of forced displacement of people experiencing homelessness is an inhumane, expensive, harmful, and counterproductive measure. It destroys people’s places of refuge, community ties, and access to resources, setting them back on their journey to stable housing. It’s also ineffective for its intended purpose: clearing encampments often does not lead to a reduction in calls about unhoused individuals, and only exacerbates root issues rather than ameliorating them.

An AME is NOT an encampment closure or a forced displacement measure and using them in tandem, as they recently have been used in other neighborhoods, undermines the central purpose of an AME and causes confusion in housed and unhoused communities alike.

Homelessness in Context

Homelessness in Chicago extends beyond Gompers Park. One AME is not a comprehensive strategy for addressing the demand for housing, shelter, and related services which far outweighs available resources. For every 1 person who is housed with available Chicago services, about 9 become newly homeless. Homelessness has been increasing dramatically since the start of the COVID pandemic with rising housing costs and shelters at max capacity, with the unsheltered population increasing by 65% just in the year prior to the last Point-in-Time count.

This increasing volume of people experiencing homelessness, coupled with a shortage of shelters on the north side, and complicated by the current political landscape threatening and delaying critical funding, leaves many people with nowhere to turn except public spaces like parks. This puts this population at increased risk of mental and physical health problems, violent crime, and death. Until there is sufficient deeply affordable housing stock (housing that is affordable for households making less than 30% of the Area Median Income using less than 30% of their income) and a variety of non-congregate shelter options on the northwest side, with a strong local social support infrastructure for unhoused people, some people will have no other choice but to live in public spaces.

We call on Alderman Nugent and Mayor Johnson to maintain the established city policy against breaking up encampments and to reject any request to criminalize homelessness by forcibly displacing current or future residents of Gompers Park, people who have nowhere else to live.

Homelessness does not have an easy fix, but we can help our unhoused neighbors by coming together to support them and protect their right to exist in a public space.