Melissa Farmer often walks her dog through Gompers Park on Chicago’s northwest side.
“This park is gorgeous. People don’t know about it,” she said, walking along a lagoon on a recent morning. “I want to keep my fingers crossed that people continue not to.”
In the last year, though, a homeless encampment moved in. In that time, Farmer said she has seen people steal bikes, sell drugs and burn fires. Now, she carries pepper spray. She has complained to police, the city’s parks department and her alderman.
“They’re like, ‘you’re basically stuck with them,’ which is infuriating,” Farmer said. “I don’t personally understand how we can’t say, like, ‘hey, you can’t live in the park.’”
Many people across the country share Farmer’s concerns. As more people end up living in parks and under viaducts nationwide, residents and politicians in the communities around them have increasingly seen encampments as a threat to public safety.
It has become a major talking point in the race for governor in Washington state and in San Francisco’s mayoral race . A speaker at the Republican National Convention spoke of drug deals and “filthy tents” on her block in Pittsburgh. Before the Democratic National Convention, city officials in Chicago built a fence to deter an encampment there in the name of public safety .