Committee on Budget and Government Operations
City Council November 16, 2020
ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, According to investigative reporting by the Guardian newspaper, over an 11-year period the Chicago Police Department has "disappeared" more than 7,000 people at an interrogation warehouse known as the Homan Square detention center. Many of the detainees at Homan Square were not allowed access to attorneys nor was public notice given of their whereabouts, which are both infringements on their constitutional rights. Data show that 82.2% of people detained at Homan Square were Black, while 32.9% of the Chicago population is Black, and only 5.5% of the detainees were white, while 31.7% of the population is white; and
WHEREAS, In the summer of 2016, the Let Us Breathe Collective launched Freedom Square, an encampment led by activists protesting the injustices occurring inside the Homan Square CPD facility. Since then, the encampment has grown into a community space for providing free clothes, books, meals, and arts programming for the children of North Lawndale, and free sleeping tents for community members, protestors, and neighborhood residents experiencing homelessness; and
WHEREAS, According to a 2016 Chicago Police Accountability Task Force investigation, the Chicago Police Department regularly engages in racist policing practices such as racial profiling of Black and Latinx drivers who were searched four times as often as white drivers, when in fact CPD data shows that contraband was found on white drivers twice as often as on Black and Latinx drivers; and
WHEREAS, As a city we can no longer accept these racist and unconstitutional policing practices, or allow them to continue to occur. It is time we take action to remove all such "black sites" as we reform our criminal justice system; now, therefore
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO:
SECTION 1. The above recitals are incorporated herein by this reference.
SECTION 2. This ordinance shall be known as the "Close Homan Square Ordinance".
SECTION 3. Beginning on January 1, 2021, the Superintendent of Police shall move police personnel and offices out of Homan Square to ensure the property is vacated by all police personnel and the City by February 28, 2021. Beginning March 1, 2021, the City shall no longer utilize the property located at 1011 South Homan Avenue / 3340 West Fillmore Avenue, known as Homan Square, for any use by the Chicago Police Department By June 1, 2021, the Commissioner of Planning and Development shall initiate a community input process to determine the future use of Homan Square. This community input process shall include North Lawndale Community coordinating Council (Shelia Mcnary), St. Agatha Church, Better Boys
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Foundation, Emmaus House, Chicago Torture Justice Center, Westside Justice Center, and the #LetUsBreathe Collective. By December 1, 2021, the City shall have turned over the Homan Square facility to a purpose that benefits the surrounding community and the people of Chicago, as determined by the community input process.
SECTION 4. On an annual basis, beginning in the 2022 City budget, the City shall reallocate the funds previously spent by the Department of Assets, Information, and Services (AIS) and the Chicago Police Department for the maintenance and upkeep of the Homan Square facility to fund youth services, addiction services, and rapid re-housing services in the North Lawndale Community Area.
SECTION 5. To the extent that any ordinance, resolution, rule, order, or provision ofthe Municipal Code of Chicago, or part thereof, is in conflict with the provisions of this ordinance, the provisions of this ordinance shall control. If any section, paragraph, clause, or provision of this ordinance shall be held invalid, the invalidity of such section, paragraph, clause, or provision shall not affect any of the other provisions of this Ordinance.
Carlos Ramirez-Rosa Alderman, 35th Ward
Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd Ward
Maria E. Hadden, 49th Ward Matthew J. Martin, 47th Ward Andre Vasquez, Jr., 40th Ward Byron Sigcho-Lopez, 25th Ward
Michael D. Rodriguez, 22nd Ward Jeanette B. Taylor, 20th Ward Daniel La Spata, 1st Ward
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SECTION 7. This Ordinance shall take effect immediately upon passage.
