None. . . clearly!

. . .

Honestly, it’s cold out. This is the least of my worries as long as people aren’t being harassed. Not saying they shouldn’t find a better solution, but I’d much rather see people with the soles coming off their shoes in the corner of the airport than under a viaduct. Optics would not be my priority in this situation. Sorry if that bothers anybody.

Sorry but no.

Have you seen some of the photos? There's drugged out people passed out right in the middle of the hallways.

There's zero excuse for it. I'm totally ok with the city allocating a small set of resources to get these folks somewhere else, but we can't just let this happen.

^Yeah. . . this is completely unacceptable. . . almost all of these people have serious drug problems. . . they're not just down on their luck folks who can't get in out of the cold. . . they are a danger to themselves as much as they are to others aside from the obvious issue that it makes the city look bad. . .

. . .

Right... the city spends a ton of resources to help the homeless (sure, maybe there should be more or better targeting?) but when people are on drugs or have mental issues and refuse the help.. the answer can't be to throw up our arms and let them corral in our international airport. It baffles me that anyone can find this acceptable or make excuses for it.

I'm surprised Lightfoot didn't find a way to blame the airline passengers for this.

I agree with this partly, except that in those insecure locations in the airport, the homeless (along with criminals and the non-flying public) have access to the baggage claim area. This is unacceptable in my book and needs to be rectified ASAP. I am not sure about the number of baggage thefts from the baggage claim, but I am sure it is not zero (as that should be the goal).

There are certainly concerns about homeless people taking over public space anywhere and there are responsible ways to address this situation, but I'm certainly not concerned by the faux shock of Fox News and some forumers. I'm sorry if it upsets you, but nobody should be outside in freezing temperatures. People die every year from hypothermia so it's a bigger concern to me than optics. Welcome to Chicago. :cheers:

I know that! I’m aware! They are not supposed to be there. Airports is not safe. They need more help. This is not a shelter. They have to go to the city or housing agency. This is very bad. It could be worst! They have no home and no money. They have keep it out of airport property. Don’t let those homeless people to come at airport anymore. They will be arrested for trespassing charge.

Again - NO

I understand people need a place for shelter, but the airport is absolutely not an acceptable place for folks to just lay out in the middle of the hallway drugged out.

You're totally in the minority on this. It's not a "faux shock" - The photos speak for themselves. It's utterly insane that it's occurring. It's also totally gaslighting to suggest we shouldn't be all that upset about it. Not to mention - as noted by nomarandlee - It's a total safety hazard for incoming travelers.

No. . . you're totally missing the point. . . I assure you that none of us are Fox News afficionados and the "faux shock" is distracting from the real problem. . . you shouldn't have a situation like this at an International airport where people with serious drug and mental health problems are just roaming around harassing people, using the common areas as toilets, sleeping on the floors or just stinking up the place. . .

Mark my words, it's just a matter of time before someone crawls through the baggage handling beltway into the secure parts of the terminal and causes a REAL problem for themselves or others. . . then you'll have a Fox News story that all the networks will report. . .

Fucking rediculous!

. . .

Yey! Welcome to the new Chicago, landmark city being turning into a homeless sanctuary city where stealing public space is the norm… Doesn’t matter you have shelters, doesn’t matter this people have already stolen public parks and public transport, it’s not comfy enough and maybe they will find airports toilets more acceptable. Next time maybe we should allow them to use your own bathrooms since airports are not so clean anyway.

This is ridiculous.

theyre probably going to end up somewhere else now and that will be in the news as well in a few weeks. I feel like the bunch that was previously camping in the clark and lake stop moved over to O'Hare, i wonder if they'll head to midway airport next.

Also I do want to say that while homelessness is a serious issue i don't think its quite the catastrophe that people are making it out to be. Its nothing compared to what I saw when I lived in the Bay or other west coast cities like LA or Seattle.
Had a couple of friends from the Bay recently visit and they remarked how clean and free of homeless the city was in comparison to the Bay area.
Now this doesn't mean the city shouldn't do anything about it or let it get worse, but thought it would be good to put things in perspective.

^^
It’s a negative trend that is growing every year. The dire situation pacific coast cities currently face did not occur from one day to the other, and every year you can see this issue is getting worse in Chicago. Homeless tents near the Belmont Marina were rare and only lasted during summer/autumn, now I find at least 5 tents in the area all year. The situation in Uptown near Montrose beach is getting really bad and Humbolt Park is fully invaded of tents now. I even saw 1 sleeping bag inside a kiosk with some shit in Lincoln Park which used to be a homeless free haven. Please note I am talking of areas outside the Loop in northern upper class neighborhoods which are not even that close to a CTA station. Now the airport?

Chicago’s weather will continue to get warmer during the next decades, so if we continue with this progressive tolerance that takes you nowhere, we will repeat the same mistakes San Francisco did. Let’s please be smart and learn the lesson. Homelessness is not addressed by allowing people to steal public space, that’s not the solution. Invasion of public space is a sign of a third world underdeveloped country.

I really don't want to get sucked too deep in a conversation about this. I maintain that there are ways to responsibly address the problem. But acting like this is something new or it's getting worse and worse and we're going to drowned in homeless people if we don't kick them out on the street or lock them up in jail is just farcical. If you look at the point in time count of homeless people in the city there's no indication that the numbers are going up. In fact, last year the number of people on the street was comparable to 2013, 2016 and 2019 which had the lowest numbers in the past decade. The count hasn't been released this year yet, but there's no indication there's some spike or steady increase. There's simply seasonal shifts. When the weather gets cold, the homeless shelters start to fill up and people seek places to sleep that are inside. It's going to happen every year to some extent. The city can and should be more responsive to address the problem proactively, but to some extent it's not predictable and just requires the city to respond when people start overstaying their welcome, causing trouble and taking up too much space.

Everything in this post is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Nobody is arguing homeless trends in the city. Nobody is arguing that homeless should be locked up. Nobody is arguing that homeless isn't a complex issue that will require a complex solution to address it.

The key issue is:
1 - Up until recently, homeless people weren't camping out in the baggage collection area at O'Hare. We aren't acting like it's something new - It is something new.
2 - It's unacceptable to allow drugged out homeless to camp out all over the place. It's horrible for the city's image, it garners very very bad press, and it's a complete hazard to passengers.

This is right. People are injecting drugs or shitting next to the elevators in O'hare. Regardless of what the proximal or distal causes might be for that, and acknowledging that something should be done to help people avoid those circumstances, they should not be encouraged through neglect and incompetence to spend time in environments where they are creating a hazard and doing harm.

Now you're being disingenuous. . . IT MOST DEFINITELY FUCKING IS GETTING WORSE!!! You haven't been listening and probably haven't even travelled through O'Hare to notice the problem. . . we're not talking about HOW MANY homeless there are in the city. . . we're specifically talking about WHERE the homeless are!!!

How are you not understanding this?!? [/facepalm]

. . .

Eh, I remember LGA having an issue maybe 6-7 years ago, and I have heard sporadic reports of homeless at JFK recently, but nothing out of hand IIRC. It is also a little more difficult to access the NYC airports than ORD.

Oye, someone wake me when you have an update on the new terminals.

I think we are just waiting for construction to officially begin on the satellites, which is supposed to occur this year. I am hoping SOM releases some updated renderings of what they are envisioning as we really have just two renderings from their original pitch that doesn't do much justice:

https://www.som.com/news/som-team-se...al-in-chicago/

The only things left for T5 is any remaining work on security checkpoints, along with completion of new shops/restaurants.