Pilsen ice cream seller thanks ‘angels’ who helped him find better housing, medical care

Don Ananías Ocampo, who worked as a paletero” selling ice cream in Pilsen for seven years, is celebrating this Christmas in a new studio apartment in Pilsen, thanks to help from neighbors and customers. | Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Sunlight broke through the blinds of Don Ananías Ocampo’s studio apartment as he fumbled with the ornaments on his Christmas tree.

The bright white walls and high ceilings in his third-floor Pilsen apartment are starkly different from the dark, unsanitary, rodent-infested room the 77-year-old had called home for at least the past six months. That room, accessible only from an alley along 18th Street, was unsafe for Ocampo, who struggles to walk.

Ocampo’s smile peeked through his mask on Wednesday as he gripped the walker he uses to get around after a recent knee surgery. Ocampo was grateful, he said, because he knew he wouldn’t have been able to move into this new apartment earlier this month without the Pilsen residents who stepped in to help.

“The community helped get this place for me and I am very happy,” Ocampo said in Spanish.

In recent years, Ocampo has become a familiar sight in Pilsen, pushing his paletero cart along 18th Street, selling ice cream to make a living. But this past summer, his health took a turn. Arthritis in his knees worsened after decades of laborious work, his Parkinson’s disease became more aggressive, and he learned he had skin cancer.

Don Ananías Ocampo, who worked as a “paletero” selling ice cream in Pilsen, has battled health problems but is doing better now that he’s on the right medication.

Ocampo has no family. Hilda Burgos, who lives in Pilsen, has become something of a caregiver for Ocampo — taking him to doctor appointments, fighting to find him better housing and routinely checking in on him.

So as Ocampo’s health difficulties mounted, she and others who know Ocampo wanted to find a way to help.

Burgos and other Pilsen residents launched a GoFundMe effort at the end of October to help find Ocampo a new place to live and cover some medical expenses and everyday essentials. They set a goal of $12,000, but when they reached it in just two weeks, they increased the goal to $18,000.

Burgos, Ben Emmrich and Raul Cruz led the fundraising efforts.

Monthly rent for Ocampo’s new apartment is about $750; he’s waiting for assistance from the Chicago Low-Income Housing Trust Fund, which he hopes will cover the entire rent, leaving him with just his electric bill to pay every month.

If the housing fund doesn’t come through, Ocampo will need to rely only on the goodwill of others to help make ends meet. Burgos, Ben Emmrich and Raul Cruz led the fundraising efforts.

“I’m so proud of Hilda, Ben and Raul, who were like my children in helping me when they didn’t have to and everyone else in the community who helped me,” Ocampo said. “I sometime cry and say they really [are] like my family. This community is my family.”

The three also have been helping with his housing and health needs.

“I feel much better than before the surgery because I was really suffering from the pain and almost without hope,” Ocampo said. “But now I feel that hope is growing and I feel good.”

As Ocampo’s health improves, he hopes to start selling ice cream again, but Burgos hopes those days are behind him.

Don Ananías Ocampo sits behind his paletero cart on 18th Street in Pilsen in 2019.

“The cart he pushes is too big and heavy and is not good for his legs,” Burgos said.

Burgos said Ocampo’s Parkinson’s disease had been untreated for a long time; it had gotten to the point that he couldn’t hold a spoon to feed himself. Now, thanks to the right medication, he can do that and other basic tasks on his own.

Ocampo’s new apartment building is wheelchair-accessible and has an elevator. A laundry room is down the hall from his apartment. His shower has the handles he needs to stay safe.

Burgos has decorated the apartment and helped furnish it with a bed, recliner and a sofa. The Christmas tree was also her doing.

She’s proud she could help him a place to live safely with his current health conditions.

“This is a big victory for us,” Burgos said.

“Now I can sleep well and I can stop crying and thinking that he is going to die alone in that back alley. I don’t think any person that is his age should be in that situation,” she added

“We just want him to be happy and live with dignity.”

For Ocampo, it’s nice knowing he has so many supporters.

Or, as he calls them, “angels.”

Hilda Burgos, a friend and customer, has helped look after Don Ananías Ocampo, who worked as a “paletero” selling ice cream in Pilsen until health issues sidelined him.