On Saturday night O’Hare is more like a ghost town than the world’s busiest airport, so it’s easier to spot the homeless who, like death and taxes, will not go away. They doze here and there on lounge seats, huddle in corners and bathroom stalls, or wander around aimlessly. Not many are here this evening–only 29 according to the nine o’clock count by staff members from Haymarket House: 17 in Terminal Two, 12 in Terminal Three. They don’t check Terminal One or the international Terminal Four anymore because, says one of the staff, “you don’t hardly ever find them in there.”
So the pressure was stepped up when city aviation commissioner Jay K. Franke (at the behest of Mayor Daley) ordered all unauthorized personnel out of the terminals between midnight and 5 AM. On the first night of the crackdown, October 27, 42 people were hustled out and sent to a shelter or detox center, and 6 were arrested. On the second night 27 vagrants left, and there were no arrests. Each night since, a few have agreed to the shelter alternative; others board the CTA for a long, dark ride. The next morning most are back.
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9:30 PM. “I don’t think we’ll ever get them all out,” says Carmello Vargas, as he makes his way through the terminal on this quiet Saturday evening a week after the lockout started. “Some are happy here–genuine street people. They don’t want to go to a shelter.” Vargas is the 46-year-old assistant director of emergency services for the city’s Department of Human Services. He has been coming to the airport for several nights to assist the Haymarket House staff and to offer medical care or a bed to anyone willing to vacate the premises.
“Yeah, yeah,” says the man, opening only one eye, “I know, I know.”
Joe is unimpressed. “If you took that $800,000 you people got,” he says calmly, “and divided it up among all the people here, we’d all come out ahead.”
Vargas speaks of the effort to upgrade shelters for the longtime O’Hare residents, but she isn’t buying. “Shelters are filthy, nasty, and dirty. And I will not go there!” She says that at O’Hare she has air-conditioning in summer, heat in winter, clean bathrooms, and plenty of socialization. “I have a CTA pass,” she adds. “I get out a lot. I shop at Jewel, go to the laundromat, to the movies–whatever I want.”
11:15. Vargas and Fabiano go down to the CTA station and observe some of the regulars already leaving for the night. Vargas is somewhat perplexed by the presence of a spaced-out-looking man with a shopping bag who has just come in on the latest CTA train and is limping toward the terminals. “Excuse me, sir,” says Vargas, “but you’ll have only about 45 minutes. Everybody has to be out by midnight.” The man seems not to hear as he plods on like a wounded robot.
