CHICAGOANS OF THE YEAR
What could they possibly have in common? All have accomplished extraordinary things for the greater good, earning them a place in our newest class of honorees.
THE SAMARITAN
CANDICE PAYNE
As the polar vortex was bearing down on Chicago this past January, Candice Payne was planning to cocoon through the vicious cold snap with her laptop and her miniature Pomeranian, Fendi, at her home in suburban Hazel Crest. Then the real estate broker and rehabber thought about Tent City, the homeless encampment on the side of the Dan Ryan Expressway that she passes every day on her way to work. “People there will be sleeping on ice,” she remembers thinking. “This could kill someone.” So she made a spur-of-the-moment decision: She’d charge some hotel rooms on her Amex card and move a few people out of the cold. She figured she could afford 15 or 20 rooms for two days.
At first, Payne’s efforts stalled. Hotel managers told her housing the homeless would be bad for business. Finally, the Amber Inn, a motel in Bronzeville, agreed to rent her rooms. Payne posted to Instagram, asking for anyone with a van or SUV to help shuttle people to the motel, and then headed to Tent City. While she stood by a scrap-wood fire passing out motel keys, Payne’s post was going viral. “The tips of my fingers were numb, the air was crackling inside my lungs,” she says. “And then my phone exploded” — texts, emails, social media shares, and voicemails from people
