Does anyone seriously think people are better off living under Lake Shore Dr.?

I’m not kidding with that question. Because when it comes to the matter of people opposing city officials who want to do repairs to the drive in the Uptown neighborhood because it forced homeless people to relocate, I just don’t get it.

Homeless not just in Uptown, also downtown

The issue came to a head earlier this week when Chicago police had to use force to get people who had developed a “tent city” of sorts near Wilson and Lawrence avenues to leave the area.

CITY OFFICIALS HAD made arrangements for homeless shelters to accommodate those residents, but many of the homeless did not want to go. Which I almost understand – when one has little in life, they tend to cling too tightly to what little they do have.

No matter how cruddy it might be.

But there were activist groups who were fighting the city, trying to get measures approved in court that would interfere with the efforts to do the repair work to the bridges that are some 85 years old and are considered to be structurally deficient, due to age.

To those activists, the right of a person to take shelter under the bridges was more important than the public safety at large.

THERE ALSO ARE some people who think that plans to include bicycle paths are less about making public improvements for the surrounding neighborhood and more about making the area unsuitable for the return of homeless people once the bridge repairs are complete spring of next year.

Now throughout my years as a reporter-type person, I have heard countless arguments about gentrification and community repairs being made that do not take into account the existing residents and are meant more to turn a community into a place suitable for someone of a higher economic bracket.

I actually can sympathize with those arguments on the grounds that you’re trying to chase existing residents from their homes.

But in this case, we’re talking about people without homes. Personally, I find it shameful to think that anyone can find homelessness to be acceptable, and think that those people forced to seek shelter in public places isn’t an embarrassment to our society as a whole.

I’D SAY IT’S wrong that it took a road repair project to get city officials concerned enough to want to find proper shelter for those individuals in our society who, often through no fault of their own, have no other place to stay.

I’d say it’s long overdue that city officials made an effort to find alternate sites for those people who in some cases were pitching tents (and in some cases might not have even had that much shelter) to provide themselves something resembling housing.

And I’d say city officials ought to be concerned about the existence of conditions that cause many of those homeless officials to resist the idea of staying in a homeless shelter.

Seriously, anyone who reads the news reports of recent days about this issue can hear from those homeless who think a tent is a better shelter because of the sanitary conditions or overcrowded conditions of some of the homeless shelters.

IT TRULY IS sad to think our society in Chicago has reached a point where some people think they’re safer and more secure living out in the open of the Uptown neighborhood (which may not be the impoverished turf along the north lakefront that it used to be, but is still far from luxurious) rather than in a place with electricity and running water.

Perhaps those activists who were fighting in court until recently to thwart the road repair projects should have focused their efforts to improve the shelter options for those people whose life circumstances have caused them to resort to such conditions.

And I don’t want to hear from anyone who wants to believe that some people don’t know better and want to live like that. They’re probably the same nitwits who think that some women choose to be in prostitution.

We all have an obligation to try to help those at the bottom rungs of our society, if for the only reason being that our society as a whole is no longer than its lowest members.

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EXTRA: More homeless in Chicago?

A Chicago spring. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

I realize that homeless people begging for spare change is a part of the urban landscape, and the idea of someone destitute enough to beg juxtaposed with the wealth of the Loop isn’t at all odd.

Yet I couldn’t help but notice one woman who on Saturday chose a very prominent place to set up shop and request money from people – State and Madison.

YES, STATE STREET and Madison Street – that point from which Chicago’s street grid originates. The point from which it spreads in all directions (albeit the easternmost stretch is only a couple of blocks away before one runs into Lake Michigan).

I was in downtown Chicago Saturday afternoon, and couldn’t help but notice the many people seeking my change. Including one couple whose cardboard sign billed them as a father and daughter both in need of money for a meal.

Yet something about the woman at State and Madison, with her sign and her plastic bag containing her possessions and using the signpost to lean up against while she hoped for some change just somehow seemed wrong.

While some people on Saturday were all obsessed with whether or not Hillary Clinton could keep her campaign wishes alive (apparently, she did), I somehow suspect there are others to whom it literally won’t matter who wins the primary and general election to be held later this year.

THEY ALREADY HAVE sunk to the bottom, and who knows if they’ll ever be able to climb back up in life.

Before you say that’s not of your concern, keep in mind that our society as a whole isn’t any stronger than its weakest link.

This woman reminded me of one I encountered about a month ago – when I was in the Loop to meet up with some old friends for lunch at the Berghoff restaurant. When she hit me up for money for food, I would have felt like a complete dirtbag if I had walked right on by to eat well.

I wound up giving her a $10 bill, and still remember the glee she expressed because that would be enough money to get her a pizza. I haven’t seen that woman since, but I hope she enjoyed that bit of mozzarella with sauce.

AS FOR MY encounter on Saturday, I couldn’t help but reach into my pocket for spare change. She seemed pleased with the roughly $1.50 I tossed into her can before snapping the above photograph.

An image of Chicago I wish I could say was a rare one, or one I wouldn’t see often enough in the future!

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Are we chasing people away from neighborhoods, or eliminating them?

I'm trying to figure which story I stumbled across this weekend is the most tragic.

I think it is the subject material for the Chicago Sun-Times' columnist Mark Brown, who wrote this weekend about 46th Ward Alderman James Cappleman.

HE REPRESENTS THE Uptown neighborhood in the City Council, which historically had developed a reputation as a place where the down-and-out of our society wound up living because they didn't have any other options.

That image bothers Cappleman, who appararently would prefer it if his north lakefront ward had something more along the line of a youthful or hip reputation such as something like Lake View, if not quite Lincoln Park.

To that end, Cappleman has informed the Salvation Army -- which often sends outreach trucks into the neighborhood to help distribute food to the needy -- that they're no longer welcome in Uptown.

Cappleman seems to think homeless people are deliberately making a special trip to Uptown just to take advantage of the trucks; whose purpose is to let people know of the wide range of services they can find if they visit a Salvation Army facility. Although he tries to tone down his rhetoric a bit in response.

AS THE SUN-TIMES reported, Cappleman is giving the Salvation Army one month to find another location to send their trucks. He doesn't seem to care where they send them, so long as they're not within the 46th Ward.

Salvation Army officials say they will comply. They're not looking to pick a fight.

But I'm not sure what will be accomplished by this move, other than some homeless individuals getting even less than they already have. Because I don't see them leaving the area, just because Cappleman thinks they're a blemish on his home neighborhood.

If anything, Cappleman may well be giving us a perfect example of why people are suspicious of efforts to revitalize urban neighborhoods. The "dreaded" (to some people) concept of "gentrification.

ALL TOO OFTEN, it comes across as an effort to chase people out of a neighborhood so that someone else can come in and enjoy its benefits.

And Uptown does have its benefits -- most particularly that eastern boundary also known as the Lake Michigan shoreline. Get the kind of people who pay significant types of money to live in places like Lake View or Rogers Park.

As for the individuals who get chased out, there are too many political people who seem to take the attitude that it just doesn't matter. Where they wind up is somebody else's problem -- as in they will then have to figure out a way to chase those individuals away to someplace even further out-of-sight.

Which is what too many of us think of someone like William Strickland, a 72-year-old resident of the Brainerd neighborhood (that's South Side, to those of you whose knowledge of Chicago doesn't stretch south of Soldier Field) who died early Saturday.

STRICKLAND WAS A man being kept alive by kidney dialysis treatments -- which keep his blood clean of the toxins that the rest of us dispose of through our functioning kidneys.

On Saturday, he was shot to death outside his home. Police told the Chicago Tribune they suspect someone was trying to rob him.

Not only did Strickland's family hear the gunfire, so did the driver of the shuttle bus that was waiting for him to come outside so he could be taken to his dialysis treatment.

This one hits home for me because my mother was kept alive by dialysis treatments, and she used to have a similar transport pick her up early three times a week so she could live a little longer.

SHE USED TO worry about taking a slip on the ice in the early morning hours. Being shot was something that would have gone beyond her imagination.

Yet it happened, most likely because someone thought he could get a couple of bucks from an old man.

There are those of us who get all worked up over criminal acts where the body count extends into the dozens. Yet to me, it is those who single out the most vulnerable who are truly venal.

Perhaps even more so than the current activity taking place in Uptown!

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