SOUTH LOOP — For more than four decades, unhoused Chicagoans have called a small strip of land along the Dan Ryan Expressway in the South Loop home.
While neighbors and passersby have gotten used to seeing tents at Roosevelt Road and South Desplaines Street, a tiny wooden home that went up last week has drawn increased attention.
The 8-by-8 foot tiny house is the first put up by volunteers with the Orange Tent Project, a local nonprofit that’s already drawn the ire of the city and backlash from some neighbors for bringing hundreds of orange tents to the unhoused at over 15 city sites.
Morgan McLuckie, CEO of the Orange Tent Project, hoped to move a longtime resident of the encampment into the tiny house this week. But the city slapped a stop work notice on the wooden building Thursday, citing it for being built without structure plans or permits.
“The city says they want to help people, that housing is a human right, but everything ends up being so rigid,” McLuckie said. “The reality right now is there are not enough shelter beds for the city’s unhoused. So we’re going to fight this.”
The city’s Department of Buildings, which issued the stop work order, declined to comment.
Some South Loop neighbors took to social media to express concerns about the tiny home, saying the encampment has swelled in recent years and that the area was dangerous.
Dennis McClendon, vice president of the South Loop Neighbors Association, said the group supports “any efforts to house the unhoused” but a better solution would be to use vacant lots or abandoned houses.
“Renovation of the housing units being abandoned every year in many parts of the city is probably a more sustainable and cost-effective solution than showoff or whizbang efforts,” such as the tiny house, he said.
But residents of the encampment said the wooden structure would offer them more safety and peace of mind than the tents do — and they want more of them.
‘Sleeping In Fear’
Lee, who declined to share his last name, has lived at the encampment for three years and was chosen by volunteers to live in the tiny home when it was complete. He flashed a wide smile as he stepped into structure for the first time Wednesday afternoon.
Lee attends a church nearby and spends much of his time on ramps to the expressway where many panhandle for money and work.
He said he feels vulnerable to weather or violence in tents.
“There’s good, productive people here, who are fighting their own situations, sleeping in fear in tents,” Lee said. “We should feel safer.”
McLuckie called the tiny homes a temporary solution until the city does more on a decades-long promise to end homelessness and transition people into dignified, affordable housing.
Volunteers had planned to build at least one more tiny house, which are funded by grants and donations and designed by architecture students at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
The tiny houses are raised above ground and have a door, window and front porch. They’re fully insulated, and they also have solar panels for a charging outlet, a slanted roof to protect against the weather and natural ventilation.
They cost roughly $2,000 each — significantly cheaper than any Chicago home, McLuckie said.
McLuckie said she would like to prioritize elderly people or those with disabilities “in desperate need of something more sustainable.”
“I would love to put tiny houses everywhere instead of tents. It would just take more funding and support,” she said. “These don’t have to be permanent, it’s just something in the meantime. If the goal is to have houses over people’s head, then the city is letting people down.”
‘Why Can’t We House People Immediately?’
While the number of people experiencing homelessness has fluctuated over the past five years, the city saw its highest estimate in 2023 at 6,139 people, with 990 of them living on streets or in other areas “not meant for human habitation.” That count is based on one night every winter and doesn’t represent the full scope of homelessness.
The city routinely power-washes encampments and throws out tents that are uninhabited at the time of the cleanings. People living in the orange tents feel they have no place left to go.
An encampment with orange tents under a Downtown viaduct where at least two violent incidents have occurred in recent months was cleared out in December after a political spat between Ald. Bill Conway (34th) and a top aide to Mayor Brandon Johnson, with Conway accusing the administration of withholding help unless he backed their key policy initiatives.
McLuckie said many former orange tent residents under the cleared-out viaduct near Lake and Clinton Streets have since been approved for city apartments.
“I appreciate them getting people into housing, but it sucks that it takes people and politicians complaining about tents in their front yard in order for people to get housed,” McLuckie said. “If there’s housing to begin with, why can’t we house people immediately? It takes so much aggression and anger.”
In a statement, a Conway spokesperson said the alderman has been working to place people in housing since he was elected.
“Since I took office in May, I have worked with the Department of Family & Support Services to offer housing every week to those living under the viaducts,” Conway said in the statement. “Keeping the public way unobstructed and accessible for people with disabilities is important to consider when looking at solutions as well.”
In her final budget, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot earmarked $3 million for a pilot program that would create tiny home communities on city land, answering the call of some affordable housing advocates and following a trend of tiny home villages in other major cities. It’s unclear if the Johnson administration plans to follow through on those plans.
Johnson’s office did not answer Block Club’s questions about the stop work order or if he’ll allow the structure to remain standing.
Instead, a mayoral spokesperson pointed to signature policy proposals to restructure hundreds of millions in city financing for affordable housing, as well as the Bring Chicago Home referendum on the March 19 ballot, which would create a dedicated fund for homelessness by taxing real estate transfers.
“Mayor Johnson believes that housing is a human right,” the statement said.
Orange Tent Backlash
Andy Robledo sees himself in those living on the streets. A recovering alcoholic, Robledo started giving out orange fishing tents in 2021 to help people through the winter. He made the trips to distribute the tents in his 1974 blue Ford pickup truck, along with his Blue Heeler, using the money he saved from his day job selling plants around the city.
Robledo’s initiative has since grown to a network of 1,000 volunteers, projects every other weekend and $200,000 in donations, including a gift from White Sox Charities, McLuckie said. Over 50 people came to an orange tent build at Humboldt Park last month, McLuckie said.
But Robledo said he had to step away from the project last summer after receiving “a constant barrage of hateful and vitriolic messages” in emails, phone calls, DMs and letters from neighbors, community organizations and anonymous accounts online.
“When roads in the city are messed up, it gets fixed. But when human beings are involved, you’d think the same logic would be applied, but it attracts this,” Robledo said. “I thought it was best to start taking care of myself, and let this live on as a community effort.”
While the fishing tents were “an improvement,” Robledo said building tiny homes that were “more impenetrable to the elements” has long been a part of his vision to support those living on the streets.
“For the folks living in these tents, they don’t stand much of a chance long term, and they might eventually give up and yield to the city’s lackluster shelter system,” Robledo said. “In these tiny homes, folks aren’t going anywhere until our government truly steps up.”
Jayhawk Reese-Julien and Caleb Kwok, architecture students at the Illinois Institute of Technology who developed the tiny homes, said they reached out to the Orange Tent Project as part of their work with a student-led community service group called “Freedom By Design.”
“We wanted to design something that could sustain itself, give more dignity to the resident, allow them to be seen and be a part of their community,” Reese-Julien said. “The idea is that these can be placed anywhere, even on a sidewalk.”
“But these are not meant as long-term solutions,” Kwok said. “The mission should be real housing. And this is our contribution to push the needle on that.”
McLuckie said many of the people she helps are on city waitlists for more permanent housing.
“Nobody wants to be living here,” McLuckie said.
Ricardo Vara, 61, stops by the encampment regularly to bring food, shoes and clothing to those staying there, especially during the winter. When he was 25, he lived at the encampment for almost a year after going through a divorce and struggling to find work, he said.
“It was a dramatically changing part of my life,” Vara said. “It made me pull away from society.”
The encampment has long been unofficially tolerated by the city, for the most part, Vara said. Back then, city officials placed washing stations and portable toilets nearby. Now volunteers are the ones stepping up, he said.
“The orange tents make a big difference, compared to what we had,” said Vara, his eyes welling up as he put a hand on the tiny home Wednesday.
“This is the old and the new. I hope the city supports something like this,” Vara said. “It’s really a shame they still can’t turn this into something positive.”
Scott, who recently came to Chicago from Ohio and declined to share his last name, said there can be problems at the encampment with stealing and arguments between residents.
“But I’ve tried housing that’s offered, and it just ain’t my style,” Scott said. “I’m always looking for work, but if you lose your job, you lose the house. So the problems you get here and there, we just deal with it.”
Romero Jesus, a Venezuelan migrant, said he wound up in an orange tent by the expressway after a breakup with his ex.
Romero, who is a trained car mechanic and carpenter, said he tried city shelters, but they “felt like prison” and had curfews that did not allow him to seek more work.
For now, Romero said he’d rather get by in a tent and send as much money to his family back home as possible. But someone slashed his tent the other night, and he has asked volunteers how quickly they could help him build another one.
“Chicago is still beautiful,” Romero said in Spanish. “I can’t imagine being in another city.”
McLuckie said she wants to paint the tiny homes bright orange.
“It’s a powerful visual for how our community cares,” she said. “And how much we want everyone in Chicago to get the help they deserve, and to get it now.”
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