Residents of West Garfield Park describe needles, trash and fear around a homeless encampment along 5th Avenue between Pulaski and Cicero, near the Eisenhower Expressway. Talei Thompson and other neighbors say drug use and prostitution are visible in the area, and that police sweeps have produced only temporary changes, with people and problems returning after officers leave.
Thompson, who founded the West Side Block Association to improve safety and quality of life on Chicago's West Side, told CBS Chicago that the concern extends beyond her block. She said Chicago Police have cleared the area after residents called for help, but alleged that drug use and prostitution associated with the encampment have continued to reappear. Thompson said officials should do more to prevent residents from witnessing the activity day after day.
Thompson said residents and schoolchildren deserve better and has called for a larger official presence. She also asked Governor JB Pritzker to visit Chicago's West Side and said the community is working with elected officials to identify vacant lots where people are dealing with substance abuse so they can be connected with resources, according to the same report.
City's Rules Separate Cleanups From Full Removals
The frustration in West Garfield Park echoes a policy tension Hoodline detailed last month: Chicago Park District rules bar unpermitted tents and overnight camping, but they let outreach workers perform routine site cleanings without forcing residents out. Full encampment removals are reserved for locations with active safety hazards, drug sales, or tents pitched within 100 feet of homes, as Hoodline's coverage of the Eugene Field encampment explained. That outreach-first standard helps explain why residents like Thompson see cleanups followed by a quick return of tents and the activity around them.
What City Records Show About the Corridor
Chicago's public sanitation records provide a way to examine complaints about dumping and site conditions, but the information provided here does not establish that such complaints are unusually concentrated around the 5th Avenue corridor. According to the City of Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation, the sanitation-code 311 dataset includes all open complaints and requests completed since Jan. 1, 2011; the city notes that some entries are duplicates. The department's guidance also says owners of vacant and unimproved lots are responsible for upkeep, including removing litter, debris and abandoned vehicles, according to its sanitation guidance.
The city also uses the Accelerated Moving Event, or AME, coordinated by the Department of Family and Support Services. According to a City of Chicago announcement, AMEs bring case managers, housing providers and even virtual apartment tours directly to encampment sites, aiming to connect residents with permanent housing in a single day. Rapid Re-Housing funding behind the program grew from $2.8 million in 2020 to $24 million in 2025, as reported by the same announcement.
Audit Shows High Success — But Only for Those Who Opt In
An audit released by the City of Chicago Office of Inspector General in August 2023 found that 94% of encampment residents who participated in an AME secured permanent housing, and 83% retained that housing long-term, as noted by Chicago Office of Inspector General. The audit's figures apply to residents who participated in an AME.
Thompson's West Side Block Association has already worked with aldermen from Chicago's 24th and 28th wards to clean up some vacant lots in the area, a hands-on effort that predates any citywide fix. Elsewhere on the West Side, the city has begun redeveloping vacant, city-owned lots in North Lawndale into nine three-flat buildings using $75 million from Mayor Brandon Johnson's Housing and Economic Development Bond, part of the Missing Middle Infill Housing program, according to Urbanize Chicago. Local aldermen, including Monique Scott of the 24th Ward, have backed that initiative as a way to prevent displacement while addressing the vacant-lot problem residents describe.
Citywide Numbers Drop, But Advocates Dispute What They Measure
Chicago's official count of unhoused residents has fallen sharply. The city's January 2026 Point-in-Time survey identified 6,527 people experiencing homelessness in shelters or on the street, a 12% drop from the 7,452 counted in 2025 and a 65% drop from the 18,836 counted in January 2024, according to WTTW News. WTTW reported that the steep decline since 2024 was driven mainly by a reduction in recently arrived asylum-seeking migrants.
But the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness offers a very different picture. The advocacy group reported that more than 58,000 Chicagoans experienced homelessness in 2024 once people doubled up with friends or family, or living in abandoned buildings, are counted — a figure that dwarfs the single-night tally, as reported by ABC7 Chicago and WBEZ. Local housing advocates argue the HUD-mandated survey does not capture everyone included in broader measures of homelessness.
State Budget Cuts Collide With Rising Need
Those competing counts arrive amid questions about support for housing programs. The debate highlights the challenge of moving people like those in the 5th Avenue encampment into stable, supportive housing.
The Home Illinois framework remains part of the broader homelessness discussion. Thompson's request for Pritzker to visit the West Side directly underscores the community's concerns about the state's response to homelessness.
A Neighborhood Already Facing Steep Health Disparities
West Garfield Park's struggles with the encampment sit alongside the neighborhood's broader economic and health challenges. Those challenges add context to the conditions facing residents.
Local faith leaders and health officials have pointed to decades of isolation and disinvestment as root causes of that gap, per a report from CBS News. Along the I-290 corridor near 5th Avenue, outreach remains part of the broader response to unsheltered homelessness. Whether that outreach, the city's AMEs, or other efforts will be enough to change conditions on 5th Avenue remains an open question for the residents living alongside it.
