CHICAGO (WGN) — The Gompers Park tent encampment has found itself at the center of debates around the city on how to handle situations regarding the unhoused. Ahead of a planned meeting organized Monday by 39th Ward Alderwoman Samantha Nugent, residents expressed their concerns about the current conditions of the park.
Gompers Park sits on the Northwest Side of the city, which is where Lenny Morgan used to play as a kid.
“I’ve lived here my whole life — 42 years,” Morgan told WGN News.
Now, his own kids play at the park too. But in the last couple of years, things have taken a turn with the arrival of more and more tents over time.
“There’s more tents on Foster where the baseball field is,” Morgan said. “There are issues of them heckling the kids. That should not be allowed.”
According to residents near Gompers Park, the growing encampment of tents has brought with it, a litany of other problems.
“Now there is heavy drug use, lots of partying going on, we’re finding needles, it’s hard to walk the dog” said Stephanie Samuel, a resident who lives near the park. “People don’t feel safe taking their children over there so, it’s become a really big problem.”
Data from the City of Chicago shows crime has surged by 33% during the first eight months of the year around the park, and in response, the Restore Gompers Park Coalition delivered a petition with 450 signatures to the mayor’s office, calling on the Brandon Johnson administration to put a better plan in place for the people in the park ahead of the winter season.
“I lost my job without savings. I have three kids in college,” said Brian, one of the residents living in the Gompers Park encampment. “This is temporary — hoping, wishing and praying.”
Other cities around the country have cracked down on pop-up communities like the one at Gompers Park. But Chicago is taking the approach of what’s being dubbed as “accelerated moving events” where city agencies try to convince tent inhabitants to move out of their encampments by offering alternative options.
“We are not in the business to arrest people who are unhoused,” said Sendy Soto, Chicago’s first Chief Homelessness Officer. “That is not going to solve the issue.”
Soto, along with Ald. Nugent, is expected to elaborate on the city’s plan to accelerate moving unhoused Chicagoans from Gompers Park tonight at 7 p.m. CT.
Stay with WGN News, as this story will be updated with new information as it becomes available.