People In Wicker Park Are Upset Because Someone Keeps Putting Up "Bum Bait" Signs Equating Rats To Bums

Big Cat4/23/2015 6:43 PM

WICKER PARK — The ubiquitous Streets and Sanitation Department posters warning residents about poisoned rat bait seem to have inspired an anonymous artist, whose message is offending neighbors. “I found it completely offensive. I took it down,” said Bill Healy, a 31-year-old freelance reporter, of a “Target: Bums” sign that he removed from an alley in the 1600 block of North Wolcott Avenue on Tuesday evening.

Healy said he and his boyfriend were walking back from dinner and taking a shortcut through an alley when they spotted the sign, stapled to a wooden pole. Instead of an image of a rat, the mimicking sign shows a man lying in an alley with a rat, debris and a broken bottle, and advises people to stop “enabling” bums by giving handouts and free meals.

Healy, who worked on an in-depth story featuring homeless Chicagoans that aired on “This American Life” earlier this month, said the tone of the sign was particularly off-putting. “To see something like this in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods, it shows what a disconnect there is and it’s a sad state of affairs that people are taking the time to do it. It’s also sad that it was put up and taken down and put up again in a short period.” On Wednesday morning, a new sign had been posted in the spot where Healy said he had recently removed one.

Wicker Park resident Alfred Mojica was walking his dog, Kane, when the sign caught his eye. He said he also found the message offensive. “I don’t think it’s appropriate. How can you tell whether someone is a bum or not? It looks real, the [city] seal looks as if the city put this out,” Mojica said.

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I want to talk to the idiot that thought this sign was a good idea, way to ruin it for everyone man. I’m not even mad for the same reason everyone else is mad, I’m mad that you just took the bum eco-system and shook it all up. You let the bums be the bums and you go about your business, that’s how it works. There is a certain homeostasis that exists in this world that you just shouldn’t disrupt. Bums ask you for money, you say no, they live free off the land, and you go home to your warm bed at night. Everyone sort of just stays out of each other’s way and nothing ever happens. So you get hassled once in a while, who fucking cares, just walk away, most bums don’t even have functional legs. I’m fairly confident I could outrun every bum in the world and I’m slow as shit. But this sign, this sign is the exact opposite of letting sleeping bums lie. The second you put this sign up you’ve mobilized the bum life movement. Bunch of rich white people who moved to Wicker Park in the past 2 years and bought multi-million dollar homes are now going to start feeding bums and feeling bad for bums because they have big time bum guilt. Don’t you see that man? You just started a Bum Movement that you will not be able to contain, the second the bums get the white upper middle class feeling bad for them is the second bums win, #BumLivesMatter is about to trend all up in your face and there is nothing you can do about it, idiot.

Love this guy just so confused.

“Hey uhh what’s dis bum bait dey got here, we really killing all de bums now?”