Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare International Airport has turned into a sprawling, \u201cdystopian\u201d encampment for the Windy City\u2019s rising homeless population \u2014 sparking serious safety concerns among staff and passengers, who say they\u2019ve been followed and harassed.
\nShocking photos show filthy makeshift shelters set up inside the major travel hub\u2019s terminals. One photo even shows a vagrant collapsed and asleep inside a terminal vestibule.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s out of control. None of us feel safe,\u201d Vonkisha Chatman, a custodian who works the overnight shift in Terminal 1 and 2, told CBS News.
\nChatman said she and her co-workers have been harassed by the unwelcome guests, who leave litter behind and trash the bathrooms.
\n\u201cThey will come up behind you. This one man followed us last night,\u201d another airport worker, Catherine Thompson, told the news outlet.
\n\u201cFrom the time we get here until the time we leave in the morning, they will be here.\u201d
\nThe two women said their supervisors tell them to call police, but they claim cops told them they can\u2019t intervene unless the workers are physically touched.
\n\u201cThey just tell us to be careful because it\u2019s out of their hands \u2014 like they can\u2019t do anything,\u201d Chatman said.
\nOne Twitter user posted photographs of a homeless man sprawled on the floor in Terminal 2 \u2014 and called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot\u2002to address the problem.
\n\u201c@chicagosmayor please clean up this city! This is the current state of O\u2019hare airport, homeless everywhere, sleeping all over terminal 2 and getting in peoples faces yelling,\u201d the concerned citizen wrote earlier this month.
\n\u201cThis is the first impression people get when they land in this city,\u201d she added.
\nAnother fed-up traveler shared a startling image of several homeless people camped barefoot among their belongings and litter between a glass door and an escalator.
\n\u201cThis picture of a homeless encampment was taken today at O\u2019Hare @fly2ohare Terminal 1 baggage claim. Chicago needs better leadership,\u201d the
\nNypost<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1aO’Hare International Airport, Homeless<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chicago\u2019s O\u2019Hare International Airport has turned into a sprawling, \u201cdystopian\u201d encampment for the Windy City\u2019s rising homeless population \u2014 sparking serious safety concerns among staff and passengers, who say they\u2019ve been followed and harassed. Shocking photos show filthy makeshift shelters set up inside the major travel hub\u2019s terminals. One photo even shows a vagrant collapsed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5877,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[1555,2464,1491],"class_list":["post-5876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-chicago","tag-dystopian","tag-homeless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5878,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5876\/revisions\/5878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}