Reaction to Article: “City Says Explosions at Uptown’s Homeless Camps Damaged LSD Bridges,” April 26-May 2, 2023, vol. 119, no. 17.*
Explosions, Cappleman, LSD, and More!
This front-page article shows a lot of frustration about homeless persons and their tents and indeed their presence in the Uptown (and other) neighborhoods of Chicago. The author of the article is not specified, but their unhappiness about unhoused persons almost being “privileged” because they do not have to follow rules is clear.
The article consists of two main parts:
Part One is devoted to the topic of the encampments under the Lake Shore Drive bridges over side streets in the Uptown area. There is frantic discussion of the tents, the homeless people not wanting to relocate, the propane tank fires, the frustration on the part of many, and the “perhaps thousands of manpower hours and millions of dollars in salaries and resources” that have been employed to try to “solve the problem of a few dozen campers…”
Really?
This first part of the article contains some hyperbole, and as the reader notices, each paragraph adds a little more hyperbole until there is even more hyperbole than in the previous one. What’s more, even more hyperbole is added until there is what could be called a “great deal” of hyperbole.
Part Two is even more exhausting and centers on the claim that not only did Alderman Cappleman do his best (“a gallant effort”) to help the homeless while in office, even now is so concerned he is leaving some guidelines—and great research-based advice—in place to help the homeless even more than he did while in office.
The only problem with this story is that he did almost nothing whatsoever to help the homeless, in fact deriding them…
He did organize a few events and in all the time he was in office helped the correct people offer some housing to the unhoused, and from that effort he did manage (not really him doing it but the article does not allow that level of reality) to get a few people “indoors.”
He organized some events, got about 100 people housed, (or is it more and where can we get a good list of what he actually did???) had a run-in with some drunks on the corner, and encouraged “greater use of evidence-based, best practices to push for interventions that got people into housing…” faster than the city had been doing.
StreetSense reported on this in our own article. The following passage, from our article called “Encampment and Encroachment: Homeless Tents Threaten Americans” and posted on February 13, 2023, tells of Cappleman’s nonsense:
In Chicago, Alderman Cappleman insisted last year after a cleanup of the famous viaduct in Uptown that that some homeless simply do not want to live indoors (Encampment and Encroachment - by Thomas Hansen (substack.com)). He mentioned offhandedly he had proof of this after he had offered those community members some apartments but that several did not want them (John Greenfield, May 28, 2021, “Ald. Cappleman Discusses 46th Ward Walk/Bike Projects, and the LSD Viaduct Issue,” Streetsblog Chicago, https://chi.streetsblog.org/2021/05/28/ald-cappleman-discusses-46th-ward-walk-bike-projects-and-the-lsd-viaduct-issue/).
His mean-spirited comment, even though he provided some explanations why the homeless did not want housing, was met head on by Patricia Nix-Hodes, Director of the Law Project of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, who stated, “ ‘People experiencing homelessness want and need permanent housing. It is simply false to claim otherwise.’ “
This shows clearly some people who actually know better do not take everything he says to be the God’s honest truth, the only truth, or the real truth. Big boxes of hyperbole (and a lot more hyperbole) notwithstanding…
BTW – a colleague of mine thinks LSD was chosen (instead of Lake Shore Drive) because it makes the homeless people sound more like drug addicts—just in case some of them being discussed are NOT drug addicts and it is something that helps the “hyperbolic” flavor of the article… I personally have no comment on the News-Star article’s author use of LSD.
That author does agree with Capplemen, apparently, and speaks of the causes of homelessness being complex. The author reminds us that “thoughts of an easy quick fix evaporated years ago.”
Also reporting on the topic of the Cappleman legacy, Mina Bloom penned this article in the older DNA online news: “Capplemen ‘Regularly Vilifies’ the Homeless, Homeless Advocacy Group Says.” Appearing on June 15, 2015, about halfway through Cappleman’s reign), the article again makes it clear Cappleman is being called out for getting rid of affordable housing in his neighborhood, encouraging gentrification with units having crazy-expensive housing costs, and blaming the homeless for driving good businesses out (https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150616/uptown/cappleman-regularly-villifies-homeless-homeless-advocacy-group-says/).
Back in the News-Star article, we get repetition of the craziness of the unhoused, with the author of that article reminding us that builders are adding dozens of new high-density and affordable housing everywhere in the city—including in the Loop.
There are just many, many, many places for the over-50,000 homeless people to live. Just wait! There will be even more many places! Many places are going to be out there! And despite dozens more (50,000 divided by 12 apartments is what?) there are still some of those darn nomads and vagabonds out there.
The News-Star laments regarding this huge number of cheap places to live that the homeless seem to be refusing to consider, by saying, “But for a variety of reasons, many of the homeless campers prefer to camp.”
In our neighborhoods, we just have an awful lot of people who feel very, very bad for the unhoused and would love to help them—even those silly homeless people who just do not want help.
This ignorant statement keeps coming back. In print. Everywhere. For people to see and read.
In the neighborhood article, we also get the reminder that Cappleman has background in Social Work—and is the only alderman like that anywhere!—and we should as taxpayers fearing homeless people should be glad he is looking out for us. And trying to help the homeless despite what they think they want. And by accident helping the small business owners.
If anything, Cappleman should be ashamed of himself.
At the end of the News-Star article, he is quoted about his April 19 ordinance aiming to reduce homelessness by 25 percent as early as January of 2025.
He is no longer going to be alderman of that ward (or any?) soon, remember.
What’s really confusing is he also states he is glad with the direction in which things are moving, and he hopes “we will move faster when we commit to working together on proven strategies that will produce outcomes of getting people more quickly into permanent housing (my emphasis added).”
So who is WE?
If he is no longer going to be alderman, is he going back into Social Work? Into work in a housing agency to help the unhoused?
He cannot go to work for the Chicago Department of Family and Social Services, I don’t believe…
He did insult them—and they even responded with a formal statement defending themselves.
Or perhaps he will be working for a big developer? A science lab? A condominium building designer? A city planner—in some other city?
The Internet is just as full of articles about Cappleman NOT helping the homeless as it is about him telling about how he has helped them… or more fully in a bigger way, plus size, bigger, and moreso fashion.
Was the whole purpose of the News-Star article to prove what a great guy Capplemen is?
The author of the article says it best (but shoots himself in the foot) when he makes this statement about the complex causes of homelessness and the difficulty solving the issues:
“The problem is as bad now as it was when Cappleman first took office in 2011.”
Oops.
.
As if that were not bad enough, we can add a little “more” to the article. There are many, many MORE homeless people in Chicago now than there were in 2011. Most recently, the count was something like 58,000 unhoused Chicagoans.
.
* Hard copy, pages 1 & 12, see list of locations to pick up an issue (Pickup A Paper (insideonline.com)). Subscriptions $20 per an, available from: News for Chicago's North Side (insideonline.com)