GROWING ENCAMPMENTS - BELMONT - KEDZIE

BELMONT - KEDZIE

The Belmont-Kedzie homeless encampment has been a fixture under the Kennedy Expressway for at least 15 years, comprised largely of Hispanic and non- Hispanic men and women.

Before Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th ward) took office five years ago, the encampment was located on the north side of Belmont Avenue. Anti-homeless boxes and fences installed there, however, squeezed the space and so pedestrians and people using wheelchairs headed west to the CTA Blue Line complained, said Ramirez-Rosa. After a series of community conversations with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, the Avondale Neighborhood Association and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, encampment residents themselves decided to move across the street to a triangular enclosure.

“I view the residents of the encampment as residents of the 35th ward and I admire them for being organized,” Ramirez-Rosa said. “Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the residents of the encampment would attend local CAPS meetings to be sure that conversation was occurring between neighbors. Despite outward challenges and facing violence, they have been able to come together and organize themselves, work with neighborhoods, community groups, my office.”

Moving to the enclosure has not protected the encampment. On July 13, fires broke out there just before 10 a.m. and again 20 minutes later, followed by a 12:30 p.m. fire at another encampment under the expressway at Diversey and California. On October 5, Belmont-Kedzie was the scene of another fire. According to the Chicago Police Department, the July incidents are being investigated by arson detectives, but the October one has been classified as non-criminal: a propane tank that exploded.

The triangular Belmont - Kedzie encampment.

Kathleen Hinkel

Three fires in a short time, close to one another, has made encampment residents feel targeted and wary of arson, Ramirez-Rosa said. According to Block Club, Carlos Rivera saw two men dropping something off at the encampment and then he saw two tents aflame. A resident of the camp for about a year, he lost all his belongings and his cellphone and burned his hand. He had seen the two men around the encampment the day before.

Rivera did not want to talk to a reporter in January, however. “We die and then we die,” he said.

“We’ve really seen an outpouring of support from neighbors all across the northwest side and even out to Mount Greenwood, dropping off supplies after the fire destroyed almost all their tents,” Ramirez- Rosa said. People in the community or driving by have given meals or items to keep residents warm. Ramirez-Rosa’s ward office has hosted drives to collect toiletries or other necessities. He also set up black garbage cans and weekly pickup through the Department of Streets and Sanitation.

Esteban Burgoa is a nearly 30-year resident of the community who posted photos of the encampment fires on Facebook and who built a shower for them to use in summer. A veteran who was homeless for two years after his 2003 deployment, Burgoa lost his house and his business, lived in a warehouse and then took up truck driving. “I healed through Mother Nature, the water, the mountains, seeing the sunrise and the sunset.”

The former location of the Belmont - Kedzie encampment, until fences were installed to eliminate space for tents.

Kathleen Hinkel

Burgoa has brought food to the encampment, and in March and April he turned his real estate office into a sewing shop, with 12 volunteers on sewing machines helping him at one point. The result was 10,000 masks, triple-layered against wind and vapor with vinyl he had on hand, which he gave out to residents of the Belmont-Kedzie and Dan Ryan-Roosevelt encampments, to Pilsen and West Side low-income Latino and African American communities. “I wanted to be sure we save some lives and raise awareness.”

Burgoa blames housing prices for the growth of the encampment. “In the 80s, somebody could buy a house in Logan Square for $68,000; now, it’s half a million at least. And it’s not $500, $600 rent anymore, putting a lot of people out on the street. I wish somebody could give property to give them housing, provide education. They want to work,” he said.

Ramirez-Rosa would like to see Chicago raise the Real Estate Transfer Tax (RETT) on properties selling for over $1 million, which advocates say would raise over $100 million a year for housing. “We need more funding for affordable housing, particularly for people with little to no income.”

By Suzanne Hanney / photography by Kathleen Hinkel