In a village rightly proud of its efforts to collaborate in solving problems, the recent move by Metra’s police unit to clear out unhoused people from the commuter train station in Oak Park was heavy-handed.
We understand the motivation of Metra to create a more welcoming space for its customers moving through the North Boulevard station to board its trains. Metra police said that up to 20 people were effectively living in the station as the winter months wore on. That led to complaints from riders about litter, smoking and drug use.
With a longtime security agreement expiring between Oak Park police and Metra — during which the village had provided security at the station while maintaining a police substation in the facility — Metra chose to use its own staff to secure the station. That’s fine.
But the process wasn’t fine. Housing Forward, an outstanding nonprofit serving people who find themselves without housing for any reason, would have been a logical partner in helping people living in the station to be moved somewhere safe and with a range of services that might move them toward more permanent housing.
That is how the village handled it when it cleared out an earlier encampment of unhoused people living under the ramp to the Metra station. Housing Forward was actively involved then in working with each person to improve their situations.
Housing Forward, which is very active in Oak Park, was not happy about the situation with Metra. In an unusually terse response last Friday, an agency spokesperson said, “There is no way to know exactly where those individuals have gone, and most don’t have phones, which makes it nearly impossible to reach them. Many will be forced into other public spaces, including on public transit or into the neighborhood. Prior to April 1, more than 25 people were consistently using the Oak Park Metra station to stay sheltered. Since then, we have only been able to reconnect with two of them.”
In this moment, especially, we all need to do better to treat each person we encounter with kindness and respect. On that score, Metra accomplished a narrow mission but fell short of the humanity test.