HOMELESS ACCEPT FATE AS TENTS ARE DISMANTLED

By the time unfamiliar hands yanked the poles out of the dirt and her tent collapsed like a soufflé, Carol Aldape had accepted her fate.

“I’mgoing to sit back like a lady of leisure and havemy drink,” said the 68-year- oldwoman, sipping ginger ale from a Big Gulp plastic cup.

Moments later, Aldape— with her two dogs, Chief and Bella, sunning themselves nearby— fished a hand- rolled cigarette out of her purse, lit it and took a deep drag.

Itwas that sort of morningMonday for residents of the two dozen or so tents liningWilson Avenue nearNorth Clarendon as cityworkers moved in to dismantle their encampment.

Most of the residents hauled their belongings to that spot Sunday, having lost state and federal legal battles to remain beneath the Lake Shore Drive viaducts atWilson and Lawrence. City trucks moved in earlyMonday, with crews getting set to repair the crumbling viaducts.

Amixture ofmuted defiance and resignation — aswell as confusion— persisted formuch of the morning among tent city residents and supporters. They cast suspicious glances toward a growing Chicago Police presence near the viaduct, uncertainwhen or if they’d be given the boot.

Before crews pulled up her tent, Maggie Gruzlewski, 49, said she had no plans to move into a shelter.

“They have bed bugs. I have sleeping problems. I can’t sleep with so many people in one room,” Gruzlewski said. “And I don’twant to leavemy boyfriend. We’ve been together 10 years.”

Raphael Mathis, 49, said hewouldn’t leave his tent willingly.

“I’mgoing to fight,” said Mathis, whose mother named him after the singer JohnnyMathis. “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

By late morning, city socialwor kerswere politely making the rounds, telling residents they would need to move and that they, theworkers, would help them find shelter elsewhere.

And by 10: 45 a. m., Chicago Policemoved in, one officer standing behind each tent.

“Thewholeworld iswatching!” the residents and their supporters chanted. A driver slowed down, lowered his windowand yelled, “Get these b------ s out of here!”

“I ain’t going to no damn shelter,” grumbled resident Rochelle Chambers, as she tossed a bar of soap, a package of table salt, a pair of sunglasses and other possessions into a blue plastic tub.

A lawyer representing the tent city residents said his clientsweren ’tmistreated but said the situation could have been handled differently.

“The policewere certainly polite about it,” said Alan Mills, executive director ofUptown People’s LawCenter.

“However, they should never have been moving people out in the first place. They gave people 30 days to move out from under the viaducts; people voluntarily did that, and then they gave them half an hour to move out of this area, and said, if they moved anywhere else inUptown— on a public street or public property— theywould also be arrested. So they didn’t give them any options at all.”