Portage Park neighbors rally around homeless man after CDOT removes bus shelter where he lived

CHICAGO (CBS) -- A few hundred Portage Park neighbors are rallying behind a man they call the CandyMan, who is experiencing homelessness with their neighborhood, after the city's Department of Transportation removed the local bus stop he was using as a shelter.

As CBS 2's Sabrina Franza reported Thursday night, the man is known as the CandyMan not because he gives out any candy, but because his friendship with Stacy Roszak started over a candy bar.

"I asked him, what did he like? And he said, 'Sweets and chocolate,' so I just kind of, 'CandyMan!'" Roszak said.

Roszak said for years, about 400 neighbors organized on Facebook to make sure the CandyMan was taken care of. They don't know his real name.

"Like Mondays, I'll take; Tuesdays they'll take; like tonight, it's me for chicken pot pie, and then we all just kind of come together with what he has; like what he wants to eat," Roszak said.

The CandyMan's home base was a bus shelter that sits outside Merrimac Park, at Irving Park Road and Narragansett Avenue. Then, the city's Department of Transportation removed the bus shelter.

"Why would you take the only thing that keeps him from the rain or the snow?" Roszak said. "That's the only thing he had."

Roszak said the CandyMan never asks for help. Now set up in a tent along the wrought iron fence at Merrimac Park, the CandyMan did not want to speak with us on camera Thursday.

But Roszak said she and the community are determined that his new home is looked after.

"Last time, I got a hug, so that was nice. There's times where he doesn't even know who really I am, so sometimes that breaks my heart," she said. "But I know he knows."

CDOT released this statement: "The bus shelter was moved at the request of the Alderman. CDOT is working with CTA on surveying new locations to place the bus shelter."

Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th) talked with Franza over the phone. Sposato said there were complaints that the CandyMan was taking over the bus shelter so others could not use it.

"I see people standing up there with their umbrella in the rain. I see kids waiting out there for their bus. So it's not right," he said. "I have to do what's right by my people; what's right by the neighborhood."

Sposato said he has received multiple complaints about the CandyMan, and he said the CandyMan declined help when it was offered by the city.

"I've asked him if he wanted something," Roszak said. "He never says he wants anything."

If you ask Roszak, she will say helping the CandyMan is not about showing up once. It's about the long game.

"There's a lot of people that need help, and mental health is a big deal," she said, "and I just think we need to focus more on that."