I am pissed.

Whether or not that is the appropriate emotion to have, I can’t say, but that is what boils up most days I walk down Michigan Avenue lately.

Sanctuary city Chicago is now learning what it actually means to be a sanctuary city. Before this year, the moniker was just another in a series of virtue signals so often practiced by our politicians to manipulate us and by everyone else on social media to impress their friends and to signal their alignment with the current cause célèbre. 

As such, the mayors of Chicago and of other cities across the country could appear on TV, argue passionately for open borders, and claim their unbridled compassion for the people coming across our border without ever having to personally deal with the issue. They could turn a blind eye at photos and video from Texas at the Rio Grande or from the Arizona deserts. 

The concerns coming from the governors of states such as Florida could easily be ignored. After all, that was their problem. No problem here in New York. Or Chicago.

And then in 2022, Governor of Florida Ron Desantis sent 50 migrants to a town on Matha’s Vineyard, Edgartown, which had voted unanimously to be a “sanctuary destination.” I’m sure the entire town patted themselves on the back for their compassion when that designation passed. That is, until Desantis called their bluff. Forty-four hours after they arrived in Edgartown, they were summarily shipped out of town.

But that “stunt” led to the adoption of the strategy by other border states. Suddenly, cities like New York and DC and Chicago were faced with busloads of illegal immigrants showing up at their doors. It didn’t take long for leaders of these cities to take the same position as those on Martha’s Vineyard. This is a racist political stunt. They don’t have the resources. This isn’t their problem – they aren’t a border state. When they declared themselves a sanctuary city, they didn’t mean THIS. 

The first vitriol was directed at the governors of border states. But it didn’t take long for that to be turned to Biden. Mayors such as Eric Adams demanded federal support and money. And border state mayors hoped that the federal government might actually start to pay attention to the crisis. As a side note, right after Eric Adams criticized Biden’s lack of federal support, the FBI initiated an investigation into the New York mayor and confiscated all of his electronic devices. Read into that what you will.

So here we are, in sanctuary city Chicago, where the local government is completely unprepared to handle or even problem-solve this humanitarian crisis that they were so eager to publicly welcome. And now tens of thousands of immigrants have landed here in the past year.

First, I want to point out a common refrain from critics in situations like this: “You get what you vote for.” And that is true. However, I absolutely did not vote for this. There is no one currently in the White House, in Congress, in the state capital, or in city hall that I voted for. And I have voted in every election since I turned 18. In fact, no one I have voted for has successfully taken office since 1984, with one exception in 2003. Yep, a pretty bad record, for sure. But I have always voted on principle not on popularity. So I can confidently say that I never voted for any of this.

However, and this I own, I did vote with my feet. After all, of my own free will, I moved to Chicago in 2019. Of course, I moved from Los Angeles (in the proverbial out of the frying pan and into the fire). There were a number of reasons for the move, but I won’t go into that here. Suffice it to say that I turned a blind eye to the politics and therefore, in a way, I accept that I condoned them as a result.

There have always been homeless here, but nothing like the homeless situation in Los Angeles, where tent cities and homeless encampments have been around for decades. I live in the city, right off Michigan Avenue. The homeless around here have typically been solitary older men, some claiming to be veterans others claiming to have no family. No surprise that some are clearly mentally ill. But anyone who lives around here and regularly walks everywhere, many of these people are regulars. The man outside 7-11 who holds court with the security guard and always has a smile. The man outside of Fourth Pres Church who makes sure to tell every person who walks by that it is a beautiful day and God Bless, always with a huge smile. The very old man outside of Walgreens who once told me he was going to stick something up my a**! The man outside Stan’s Donuts who tells me I have beautiful hair – it didn’t take long to realize that he says that to everyone, man or woman. The woman who sits on the planter outside the Museum of Contemporary Art. She has been sitting there since I moved here. She never asks for anything or says a word. But she is a neighborhood fixture, and people leave her food often. And there’s more. 

But things started changing this summer. Now and then, I would see a woman sitting on the cement cradling a baby. A small plastic container filled with maybe a dozen boxes of candy (Skittles, M&Ms, gum) would sit next to her. She would be shaking one of the boxes to get the attention of passersby. Sometimes, she would call out “candy,” in heavily accented English.

It reminded me of trips to Mexico back when I lived in LA, where children would approach tourists with chicklets. It took me a minute to make the connection to the bussed-in migrants. As the weeks went by, the number of mothers and babies and toddlers, and soon of fathers and young boys sitting on the concrete increased. So many babies and toddlers.

Then I noticed a couple of other things. For one, every little family grouping like this had the exact same little plastic box that held the same candy. How was that possible? Clearly, that was not organic. These people did not all just happen to wander into Walgreens, buy the exact same container, and the exact same candy to sell. That simply had to be coordinated. That had to mean that someone or some organization was providing these poor people who spoke no English with candy to peddle on the streets. 

Where does the money come from to supply the candy? From people like me donating at church on Sunday or to a noble cause? Do the suppliers that make this happen take a cut of those donations? Do the donations go into some central pot? I can’t seem to find much information on this. But I have learned that people on reddit are asking the same question. Some on reddit have even flat out asked the question about whether there is “any degree of trafficking/ forced labor/ gang involvement.” And others have said that the people on the street are selling candy from the World’s Finest Chocolate, a popular fund-raising company a lot of schools use.

The other day, as I walked along Michigan Avenue on my way to Millenium Park, in addition to the ever-increasing number of mothers and babies sitting on the sidewalk, I saw scenes that really bothered me. One dad was wearing a cheaply made, knock-off Winnie-the-Pooh outfit (sans red shirt), complete with a full head. He danced on the corner of Michigan and Randolph, a baby in a stroller next to him. A sign leaned against a box for donations indicated that he and his son had just arrived from Venezuela.

At the Water Tower, a father played a flute-like instrument while his young son danced for money. The child danced with wild abandon. I have seen this couple performing many times up and down Michigan. 

This isn’t right. This exploitation is not right. And that’s what it feels like. I’m not sure why this boy dancing in front of the Water Tower upset me so much. I was reminded of an organ grinder monkey. And before you get bent up all out of sorts, there is absolutely nothing racist about that. That is what we call figurative language. A metaphor. 

For those who aren’t familiar with the parable of the organ grinder’s monkey, in the story, the monkey is taken from its home in the jungle. It is dressed up and taken from town to town to dance, perform tricks, and collect money from passersby while its owner plays the barrel organ. But the metaphor is about much more than that. The parallels go deeper.

As the monkey collects money, it assumes, not surprisingly, that it is the source of value and is the one with the power. However, in reality, according to the Free Dictionary, the organ grinder’s monkey is the “one who acts for or who does the bidding of someone much more powerful.” They are doing what a powerful person wants them to do, but they have no real power themselves. 

Because someone obviously is.

I’m reminded of what I will call the Homeless Industrial Complex. Millions, no billions, of dollars are spent in this country on resolving homelessness, yet homelessness in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles mysteriously manages to increase year after year. So who is exploiting the homeless? Because there are a lot of people making a nice living off of the existence of the homeless.

So this sanctuary city has not managed to resolve the homelessness issue here in Chicago, and it has literally no plan to deal with the incoming migrants. And it seems that any suggestion the mayor comes up with is met with huge outcry. He proposed building a tent city on the South Side, and the same voters who were responsible for electing this mayor are livid. The protests have been large and loud, the city council meetings have been full, and the residents want to know why the blacks on the South Side have been ignored and provided only minimal resources, yet now the city wants to shower resources on the newly arrived illegal immigrants. To make matters worse, despite the complaints, the city went ahead and signed multi-million dollar contracts and began building. But it was soon discovered that the city failed to follow its own zoning laws. And more importantly, it failed to conduct the proper environmental tests beforehand. When the pressure became too much, the tests were conducted, and the results were that the area was toxic. Construction was shut down after tens of millions of dollars had been spent. 

In this scenario, the father is not in the role of organ grinder. The father and the child are both playing the monkey. So the question is, who is the one with the power? Who is the one exploiting these two? And all of the others up and down Michigan Avenue? And those in the recently erected tent cities along Lake Shore Drive? And the thousands living at police stations? And the hundreds sleeping at O’Hare International Airport? 

Building after building in downtown has been proposed as a shelter, the suggestion always faced with outraged objection. The local alderman has been trying to get the boutique hotel near me shut down, as crime, prostitution, and drugs have infiltrated the area. I’ve walked through there. It is dirty, filled with garbage. People line the sidewalks. Young men fight. Babies cry.

In the meantime, a hotel two blocks from me has also been suggested. Marina City has been offered up (you’ll know what that is – the apartment buildings in Marina City are the famous corn cob buildings on the Chicago River). As the winter chill approaches, no one seems to have a solution for the thousands living on the street. 

And never mind what this all must be doing to business on Michigan Avenue. I’ve seen so  many businesses close down since the beginning of the COVID lockdowns, leaving empty storefronts all over the city.

So I am back where I started. I am pissed.

The homeless deserve better. The immigrants who came here for a better life? They deserve better. The residents of Chicago deserve better. The businesses who made Chicago their home deserve better. 

In all, this city deserves better. This historically significant, this architectural marvel, this aesthetically gorgeous city deserves better than our politicians have treated it.