Judge to Decide Whether Homeless Residents Will be Evicted Friday

Homeless residents who are being evicted from underneath Uptown viaducts will find out their fate when a judge makes a ruling Friday afternoon.

The ruling, which is scheduled to be delivered at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed this month on behalf of homeless residents by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

The suit seeks an emergency order for the city to provide housing to residents that will be displaced by the plan, and to change the design before construction begins, according to the coalition.

The construction project has been decades in the making as the city looks to repair bridges in the area.

The redesign of the viaducts would route bike traffic onto a new sidewalk-based bike path, forcing the city to remove tents that homeless residents in the area were sleeping in before construction can move forward, according to the suit.

The city wants those residents to be evicted by Sunday so it can start to reroute bike traffic and to repair old bridges that homeless residents have erected tents underneath of for years.

The city has previously said that their claims lack merit.