Reader staffer katie_prout interviewed four Chicagoans who use the CTA for shelter to find out more about why they use the trains, and what they think about the current debate around policing and safety on public transit. Her latest, here:
, and “strategically adjusting resources” from within the Bureau of Counterterrorism to increase surveillance and policing of the Blue and Red Lines.
I used to stay on the Red Line, but then I switched to the Blue Line. But it’s getting just as bad as the Red Line now. I used to stay on the train; now sometimes I stay on the platform. It’s a closed platform between Monroe and Jackson that they’re not using. I would stay there. There’s a plug where I can plug my phone in and all that. They got WiFi under there too. The first time I stayed there was maybe six months ago. I went back there three days ago.
And they stopped at Cumberland, and security guards got everybody off the train. It must’ve been about 60 homeless people. They stayed right there until everybody was off. There was another train coming back the other way. They wouldn’t take nobody to O’Hare. Later that night, I went to the Forest Park Blue Line stop. From around 8 PM to midnight every Thursday, staff from The Night Ministry are out on the lower platform,free health care, harm reduction supplies, and outreach services to anyone who needs them.
[T says he rides the Blue Line to O’Hare; unlike Jeff, he says he’s never been forced to depart the train before that last stop.] You know what they’d be doing? They’d be breaking into abandoned buildings. It’s really a blessing that you got that train running 24 hours. It is absolutely not true that homeless people are why crime is rising on the CTA. A lot of the homeless people, they get out every day and work hard, shake their cup, try to make money and take care of theirself. But that’s just another propaganda we’re reading, unfortunately. I would debate this for an hour. There’s some bad apples, I get it.
My first experience staying on the CTA was in 1999. I was 19. I last stayed in December 2021. I used to do the Blue Line. I did do the Red Line a few times. They’re really both dangerous, but for some reason I think the Red Line is more dangerous. I’d stay from anywhere around 9 PM to midnight, I’d get on the train, and then around 6 or 7 AM is when I would get off.
“Sometimes I feel like they just do shit to be deceitful and discriminate against homeless people.” — Kelly.Sometimes the CTA people try to get all the homeless people onto one train. Let’s say you get to the end of the line at Forest Park. [CTA workers] say, “Oh this train is not working, so the next train going out is the one, you know, on the next track. So everybody to the next track.” So the homeless people move to the next train and go back and forth.
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