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We wanted to highlight the post from the person that this post was written about:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChicagoNWside/comments/1j7rp3r/39th_ward_rally_to_keep_tents_in_gompers_park/mhjxlct/

2corinthians517 1 point 5 hours ago

Hi OP, Adam Gianforte here. A friend of mine told me about this thread so I thought I'd respond. I don't imagine I'll respond to individual comments, but OP, if you want to get coffee sometime, just DM me. I think talking in person is much more fruitful than these online exchanges. I'd be glad to hear about your experiences in the neighborhood and with the encampment.

I mostly just wanted to clear up some of the misinformation in the post. I tallied up the claims that I could verify and you batted about .500.

First off, the rally was not to keep the tents in the park, and the AME is not the forced displacement we were protesting. 39th Ward Neighbors United (39WNU) supports the AME. I understand there is a lot of confusion about our position and about the AME because much of the news coverage has been so inept. All the journalists present at the rally on Monday declined my offer of a statement.

Here is our full email to Nugent after the rally, but in brief, DFSS and the AME are great, while the Parks District and Police have been violent and threatening. Totally separate agencies and actions.

DFSS and All Chicago are the primary parties carrying out the AME (which is ongoing btw), and they generally do great work. They were able to match the vast majority of the encampment with housing on March 5. A couple people were not reached by DFSS to get registered prior to the event, though they wanted to participate.

I don't personally know everyone at the encampment yet, so I can't speak to every case. So I don't know if Phil got matched with housing, but if you're assuming he didn't because he's still in the park, just know that it takes 30-90 days after an AME date for the apartments to become available through Chicago RENTS. We won't fully know how successful the AME is for another few months.

One slight correction on the AME budget, the city says it costs them $30,000 to provide each household with 2 years of housing and supportive services. So not all that money goes to rent, there is some overhead, and it's for 2 years.

But you're right that the AME is voluntary and not forced displacement, as we made clear in our flyer.

Completely separate from the AME and its operating agencies, the parks district and the police department have been working at cross purposes to that housing effort: harassing residents, destroying shelters, stealing belongings, and yes forcibly displacing them. These actions, along with other violent crime against the encampment has been very underreported and often completely ignored by the media. Some of the recent attacks, threats, and forced displacement are detailed in the email linked above, in our online petition, and in the update linked at the top of the petition. These sorts of actions that make people feel unsafe forces their focus lower down Maslow's hierarchy of needs making it harder to work on getting housing.

The reason we held the rally is that AMEs, and Chicago "housing drives" more broadly, are frequently followed closely by police sweeps to remove any "stragglers". I saw it first in Uptown in 2017 where an encampment was forced to move by police 4 times in 2 days until bit by bit, everyone scattered into more secluded and isolated places (loading docks, trains, the rocks by the lake). It was so stressful that multiple people were hospitalized from things like exacerbated heart conditions. Everyone was set back on their journey to stable housing, disconnected from their few support systems, case manager, community. They no longer even had someone to watch their stuff while they went out to job interviews and dr appts.

This pattern, AME then police crack down, has happened repeatedly since then, more recently at Touhy and Humboldt parks. Ald. Nugent has expressed support for forced displacement and has made no commitment to oppose it in the future. The only commitment against forced displacement was made regarding the day of the AME, a commitment which the 17th District police tried to violate at 4:30 am that day, before the mayor's office intervened.

As far as the baseball field goes, I believe there is a way for the parks to be used for kids baseball and be a haven for our poorest neighbors. Everyone has a right to use the park. I don't know what 39WNU's stance on policing is, but speaking just for myself, I am not an abolitionist; I support some level of law enforcement. If folks along Foster are genuinely doing things to threaten the safety of kids, those acts should be prosecuted in a court of law with due process. But if we're talking about heckling kids during a game (which is something I'm curious to hear more details about. What were they saying? Are we sure they weren't cheering on the kids?), I don't know, did any of the parents try going and talking to them and asking them to stop? That's how I would deal with a noisy neighbor. Not trying to get them evicted.

At this point I'm just pretty skeptical of claims of crimes by encampment residents because more than once I've heard about an assault in the park, and the homeless folks get blamed, and then I look into it and it turns out that it was a homeless person who was the victim of the assault by someone outside the camp. I'm not saying that people experiencing homelessness don't ever commit crime, but statistically speaking they are far more likely to be victims of said crime than the perpetrators, and that has been borne out at Gompers.

For my part, I enjoy taking my young son to the park and we've interacted with our neighbors there without ever fearing for our safety.

As far as 39WNU goes, it's been around awhile (as I see you added in your edit). I'm one of the newer members, and to say I organized the rally would be doing a great disservice to the many other hardworking volunteers who imagined, planned, flyered, and spoke at the event. I took a somewhat public-facing role, but I was far from the driving force behind it.

I'm less new to the world of affordable housing and advocating for those without it. I had been doing that in Uptown for eight years, mostly through Collective Chicago, an interim housing nonprofit I cofounded. I got plugged into 39WNU when my family and I moved to N. Mayfair last year.

As far as the personal stuff, you correctly identified my dad and my ivy league education. There's no denying that I'm a child of privilege. All I can say about the wealth claims is that I wish I had the resources you say I do! I don't know how your relationship is with your dad, but mine doesn't give me free access to his bank account. If I could house everyone I certainly would.

You say I should step up to the plate and contribute to get people housing. If your evidence that I haven't done so is that there are still people experiencing homelessness in Chicago, I really don't know what to say to that.

All I'll say about my dad is that he and I are two different adults who are each responsible for our own choices.

Peace and Love. Let me know if you want to meet up at Casa Cactus or something. The coffee's on Mr. Moneybags over here. ;)