Chicago’s Homeless Offered Temporary Shelter in Hotel
By Naimah Latif
Reporter,
ONAIR Daily News
The Selina Hotel at 100 E. Chestnut sits as n elegant picturesque structure off of Chicago's Magnficent Mile, where high end businesses attract picture-taking tourists year round. Whether it was hit hard by declining patronage during the COVID years, or simply feeling the effects of a declining economy, the Salina Hotel will no longer be open for business. It has instead been converted into a temporary shelter for the unhoused.
Hotel Capital, which owns the Selina Hotel, filed for bankruptcy and workers were informed they were being laid off. Michael Collier, head of the company Hotel Capital, is able to keep creditors at bay with this new plan for the hotel.
The conversion of the hotel into a homeless shelter was made possible through a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services. The decision was made amid the controversy of migrants from Venezuela receiving housing while longtime unhoused Chicagoans continued to sleep outdoors on the ground in makeshift tents. As the Democratic National Convention approached, the question arose of what to do with the large, highly visible homeless population.
While many residents applauded the gesture, some questioned whether it was a temporary bandage, barely covering the larger wound of perpetual economic distress created by a housing market run amok, in a city where apartment rental fees are unaffordable for working families and foreclosures have reached epidemic proportions. Would the homeless receive shelter long enough to put their lives back together, or was this just a quick for cosmetic purposes during the DNC, expected to attract hoards of visitors to Chicago from across the nation?
Alderman Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward includes the hotel, criticized Mayor Brandon Johnson's decision to convert the hotel to a shelter, calling it "neither acceptable nor good government." In a statement provided to CBS 2 News, Alderman Reilly said, "I strongly oppose Mayor Johnson's bad decision to convert a revenue generating hotel property, just steps from Michigan Avenue, into a city shelter that will result in the loss of many good paying jobs that help to support Chicago working families."
The elegant Selina Hotel at 100 E. Chestnut will be converted to a homeless shelter. According to the Mayor's office, 116 rooms will be used for unhoused Chicagoans for up to seven months. Photo by Naimah Latif.
Many advocates for the homeless say it is a step in the right direction, and urge more owners of vacant properties to make spaces available for the unhoused. However, issues such as mental illness and alcoholism among those who are living on the street continue to arise, with some building owners saying they can't take on the liabilities involved in providing shelter to the homeless.