Over a dozen housing lawyers gathered outside City Hall on Friday, calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to use hotels and abandoned houses as emergency shelters to keep homeless people warm in the brutally cold temperatures expected this weekend.
“We have people out here who die from the cold every year,” said Tom Gordon, vice president of the Chicago Union of the Homeless. “We’re sick of losing our loved ones. People we see every day die out here and freeze in the cold. “
Gordon, the so-called “Mayor” of Uptown’s homeless campThe use of these spaces will save countless lives in the harsh winter months. Housing, he said, shouldn’t be a privilege, but a right.
Johnny Bryant, secretary of the homeless union, said it was inhumane for him to be forced to sleep in the cold.
“I’ve been out here on these streets for almost two years and it’s not nice to know that our elected leaders are warm and comfortable at home,” said Bryant. “The homeless sleep out here in tents and in doors. They have to act and put us in hotels or a warm place. “
More snow is forecast for Saturday, with 1 to 3 inches expected, starting at 4 p.m. and through 9 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. Then on Sunday Temperatures are expected to be “dangerously cold”. When the wind is cold it feels like minus 25 degrees.
Ricardo Vara, known as the “president” of the homeless camp on South Desplaines Street and West Roosevelt Road, spoke at City Hall on Friday and remembered a friend who had frozen to death last year.
“He died with his hand in the air, frozen,” said Vara. “I always thought he had his hand in the air, waiting for a pair of keys that never came because he had been registering for accommodation for five years and still nothing came of it.”
Vara also criticized the normal opening hours for urban warming centers, which usually close at 5pm – as if “it’s not cold at night,” he said.
“We’ll keep reminding you that the homeless need shelter.”
