Danielle Walters, leader of Chicago Flips Red of Illinois, said that American families are struggling while resources are diverted to illegal immigrants. The statement was made on the Prairie State Wire podcast.
"We saw two men come down there and advocate to, because they fell on hard times," said Walters, Leader for Chicago Flips Red. "One guy, Michael Young Bay, he even brought his wife and his daughter. Now we saw them give illegals everything, free housing, free food —they even took our resources, they took our field houses, they took over our police departments where my husband was working there and they was all on the floor. They had to go into a shelter."
Chicago's approach to migrant housing and resource allocation has sparked debate as officials work to expand shelter capacity for tens of thousands of new arrivals since 2022. According to Politico, nearly one shelter per week was opened during peak months, putting a strain on infrastructure and creating tensions in underserved neighborhoods. This situation underscores the city's significant housing challenges.
Homelessness in Chicago increased sharply between 2023 and 2024, with city reports indicating that 18,836 people experienced homelessness in 2024 compared to 6,139 in 2023. This threefold increase is largely attributed to migrant arrivals. However, a Point-in-Time count from January 2025 showed a significant decline, with 7,452 unhoused individuals counted across shelters and unsheltered areas—a 60% drop from the previous year. These figures illustrate the volatility of the city's homelessness crisis, according to the City of Chicago.
Budget records reveal that Chicago increased funding for homeless services by 21% in 2025, from $161 million in 2024 to $195.6 million, addressing demand from both residents and migrants. At the state level, Illinois is projected to spend over $2.5 billion on migrant-related care by the end of 2025—a dramatic increase from earlier estimates. This spending disparity highlights the financial strain of balancing migrant aid with local needs, according to WTTW and Illinois Policy.
Danielle Carter-Walters, sometimes referred to as Danielle Walters, is a Chicago activist and co-founder of the conservative group Chicago Flips Red. A personal fitness trainer by profession, she gained prominence through her criticism of local policies on crime and migration and testified before Congress in 2025. Her activism has positioned her as a leading conservative voice in a predominantly Democratic city, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chicago Flips Red is a grassroots conservative organization founded by Black Chicago activists aiming to "flip" local politics by promoting public safety, accountability, and economic opportunity. Its leadership includes co-founders Zoe Leigh and Carter-Walters; it engages in voter education, community events, and advocacy campaigns. The group has gained visibility since 2025 as an outlet for conservative organizing in Chicago, according to the Chicago Defender and the group's official website.
___________
FULL, UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT
Brian Hyde: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Prairie State Wire Podcast. I'm Brian Hyde. I'm joined by Danielle Walters. Danielle is very active in Illinois, particularly in the in Chicago, in helping to, helping to make things better. And, and, and Danielle, I'm gonna ask you to qualify that, make things better for conservatives.
Everybody,
Danielle Walters: for everybody, but every, every, yeah, everyone. Chicagoans, Illinoisans, America, because you know everybody. Who live in America and who are natural born citizens in America. So, and people who came over here, people who came over here legally, you know, dumb as well, but yeah. Those are the people we are fighting for.
Brian Hyde: So business as usual, which in the state of Illinois can, can involve sometimes some, some kind of questionable politics that's not, that's not acceptable to you and to a lot of other people. I, I'm particularly looking at your organization, Chicago flips red [00:01:00] and mm-hmm. I'd love for you to describe for us a little bit about what that organization does, but I'd also like to hear about what was it that lit the fire under you that that really got you in, in motion in taking action like this?
Danielle Walters: Okay, so Chicago Flips red was established because I. We saw the injustice that the Democratic Pol Party policies were doing to our community to, first it started off with the black community because we are the ones who vote blue, no matter who, and give them 93%, 93 to 98% of our vote. And we've been doing this for 60 years.
Yes, it's been going on for a long time. Chicago is known as the number one corrupt city in United States. So this has been going on for a long time and we haven't had a Republican mayor since what, 1931. So we know that the Democratic party have been running Chicago. [00:02:00] So now what started Chicago FL Red?
Because you had different people with different. Who had different gripes with the Democratic Party and we all came together to form Chicago flips red. Now far as with me. My problem was, and it started way before now, but what, what really catapulted my activism or my vocal being very vocal, is me and my husband now, my husband is a, a police officer.
He, he's now retired. And I'm a business owner, so I did everything right. I don't lie on my taxes. I do everything that I'm required to do. And like I said, he put his life on the line every day. A great police officer. And we tried to, we had a home business. We bought a building, which with, we bought the building from the opportunity zone that.
President Trump established. So with that, [00:03:00] you supposed to get TIFF money to build that up, to build your business up. And so all the requirements we met, opportunity zone, if you are black, if you are a woman, all those things. And. I noticed that when I tried to, when we went down there and tried to get help and grants, now we looking at the Neighborhood Opportunity grant as well.
You notice that with that grant, they seem to give it to the same people. The people that you know are the elite people, the people that's, I guess in the, the connected, the good old boys club. Yeah, all connected. We are all, because really the Democratic party has became a socialite club. Just a party of elites and it's all in who, it's not being, it's not fair.
It's just who you know. So we notice that. We were not given the opportunity to get the grants. We noticed that with the small business loan every time. Now we went to apply for that. Now we [00:04:00] everything, we had a one credit, like I said, taxes, big, paying big taxes, and so. It's always one thing, and then they want something else and they give you, okay, now you give them that.
Then let me give you now. And they want something else now. They want something else now. And this happened for three years. We've been trying to get a small business loan. And so they finally just denied us. Didn't say why. I don't know why, but, and this just happened maybe like last year and now I'm seeing that we are doing everything right and now.
In my residential area, I'm seeing brick and mortar business being established with. Illegal aliens. Venezuelan restaurants, Mexican restaurants, they're getting brick and mortar business and they're allowed to establish restaurant entire restaurants. I'm not talking about just selling chips, we talking about where they have generators with, with fry [00:05:00] machines.
They having cooking, they having, they're having what they, you can sit down, they're serving you with aprons on and they're. Able to operate on residential areas without permits and anything like that. And they're able to make money now that's UNT taxable money 'cause they're not paying taxes on this money.
And they're able to establish restaurants in our community and they're not being, they don't have to have Where is. Permits. When I wanted to go across the street and have a workout in a park, I had to get permits, I had to get insurance. So it, it's like they were helping. People who have not paid a dime to this SY system, they were helping them get ahead and establish over the citizens that were model citizens, doing everything right.
So when I saw that, I'm like, no. No, I cannot allow this to happen. So that's what, [00:06:00] what my gripe with the city was and with the Democratic Party, like I said, it came way before then, but that's what made me just go to city council and say, no, let me force my opinion on the mic. Tell and let them know what's going on.
And that's what made, and, and, and like I said, what Zoe Lee, what Zoe Lee is, they took her mother, they unlawfully demolished her mother property. Now the, what we used to it, it was called the, it was a, a well known lounge. Bar. I, I can't remember. Just, just, I can't remember it. But anyway, so we, all the politicians that wanted to run in Chicago back in the day, our, they came to their lounge.
It was Barack Obama. He establ, he came in and ran for Senate. He announced his candidacy f Senate in the lounge. Jesse Jackson came through there. So I remember that. So everybody came through that lounge, but yet still. The city of Chicago [00:07:00] unlawfully demolished that property and then didn't pay her for it.
So her mother been fighting for that for seven years and this is what now come from there. Then you had Jessica Jackson. They did the same thing to her property. Well, they're trying to take her property. So as you come down there and and start getting to know people, you start seeing this is what they do.
This is the corruption that's been going on. And from there you have other citizens. So now. That's how Chicago feels Red established because we are like, okay, hold on. We are trying to get help from the Democratic party, the party that says they're for the black citizens. They put the black faces and, and, and put the black pro, the, the puppets in front of us and say, Hey, here go black face.
Both of us, we are for the black people, the black community, but we are noticing. You have a black mayor and Lori Lightfoot. You have all the staff like Brandon Johnson, just Tod. I have the blackest administration ever. [00:08:00] So you have all these black faces and have places and you mean you can't get no help from nobody.
Nobody can help you, period. And you are black citizen coming down there with problems like I'm getting ready to be homeless. We saw two men come down there and advocate to, because they fell on hard times. One guy, Michael Young Bay, he even brought his wife and his daughter. They were staying in a shelter because with this Biden economy, me, everybody was feeling it.
So he fell on hard times, lost his job. They had to go into a shelter. Now we saw. Them give illegals everything, free housing, free, food free. They even took our resources, they took our field houses, they took our over our police departments where my husband was working there and they was all on the floor.
I. All everywhere. They took over all our schools, all our resources to house [00:09:00] people, these illegal aliens. Yet you had two black men coming down there and like I said, Michael Young Bay, with his wife and his daughter saying, Hey, can you help me with housing? I need housing, permanent housing so I can get a job like that.
Because I lost my job. The daughter even got on the mic, 6-year-old daughter got on the mic and, and, and pleaded. To the Brandon Johnson things and you think they helped them with any type of housing? You think? They said, hold, okay, let's make sure that they get a place to stay. This family? No. So they just left them out there.
Nicole, getting still, we see illegal aliens coming down there advocating coming down to city Hall. Advocating for everything they wanted and needed and they were given that. So that's what started to, and then that, that made me really, really start looking into policies. Now I'm looking at, okay, these are, let me look at these policies.
And then when I really did a deep [00:10:00] dive into these policies, I'm like, oh my God, I don't align with none of these policies. My belief don't align. I'm a Christian. My belief don't align with any of these policies, and I'm not for, this is anti-American. This is anti-car, this is anti citizens. None of those policies benefit us, none.
Everything that they have for us, these policies now benefit. Elite. It benefits them because they make sure they voting for raises for themselves and stealing our money and it benefits L-G-B-T-Q because that's all their funding. That's all they're pushing in our schools is trans this, trans that. So it, I had the no, no.
And when we did that. We made it our business at that point to educate our people because these are the people, the black citizens are the ones who keep the Democratic party in PO in power, and we made [00:11:00] it and we know it's because we are not politically educated. So we made it our business to educate, to we are to educate our people on policies, not politics, policies.
And most of the people who we're educating and, and, and, and when, when they see they, they're like, oh no. Oh no. Oh no, but they just wasn't given that information. And then you had the fake news just spearing out all type of lies. And so when you see this and you see the lies, we have to make it our business to.
Combat these lies that they're steady pushing to us. Trump is a racist, all, all the Democrat, I mean the Republicans are just rich, white racists. They're not for you. We are for you. And so we have to make it our business to negate those lies and to educate our people to understand that these laws that they have when, when we're seeing all of these.
[00:12:00] Businesses that's in our communities are liquor stores or they're owned by foreigners. We have no black-owned businesses in our community. We have no there, far as we don't own even that little houses that we do own. They're the property taxes going up or they're, they're taking it by this illegal imminent domain, so, or building violations that.
They don't, you don't even go to court. You don't even know you have them. So they're taking our property and they're pushing us outta our communities, and they're replacing us with illegal aliens. So. We see it, but they can't, the black community see it, but they don't know how to associate it with policies.
So that's where we come in at because we are letting them know, yeah, you see what's going on. You see, we have no businesses. You see, you can't get a business when you go and try to get a business. You are red line. Or if you have a business like it's a regal theater. He, the Regal Theater in [00:13:00] Chicago that's, he bought that business, black Man bought that, bought the Regal Theater.
And you have Michelle Harris, which is a black alderman who's making sure he don't open. And not only that, they rezoned him out of the Tiff zone money. So where he supposed to get Tiff money, they rezoned him up outta there. So this is another former red line. It's not white people, it's black faces doing this to you.
So now we just had to educate our people to let them know this is happening. But they're telling you it's the white man doing this. No, it's the black man. It's, this is called, this is black on black crime. This is the black. You got all these. Black faces and have places this that, no, that's, this is what that is.
So that's what made us come together. And actually we were Republicans when we were freed Republican freed us. We were Republicans when we were, once we were slavery ended, and [00:14:00] so we were Republicans and Linda B. Johnson told. What do he say? You get these Negroes, you get 'em. Welfare. I have them voting for me for 200 years, and so we've been tricked by the Democratic party to make and, and, but our original roots, who we are, are Republicans, and that's who we align more with.
So we are just educating our people, giving them back to reality, letting them see how harmful and devastating the policies are because. All of the illegals that came into Chicago were placed in our communities. Now you now we have these Hispanic aldermen that I call the Hispanic K, K, K. We call 'em the.
Byron Central Lopez. We have Andre Vasquez, Jesse Es. All of those people are advocating to keep illegals here, but yet they don't have no illegal alien shelters in their community. They're not in their community, but their place all at ours. So. [00:15:00] We just have to educate our people to understand the ones, and we are definitely going and trying to educate the ones who keep the Democratic party in power.
Because if we can get a chunk of the people who keep the Democratic Party in power to go and understand policies and go to the Republican party, then it's over for the Democratic party. And that's what we are trying to, we are making sure we destroy them. For their anti-American socialist communist agendas that they hate.
That's not for us.
Brian Hyde: Danielle, I think you have perfectly described the problem, and frankly, I, I mean, I have friends from Chicago who will tell me all the time, oh man, there's so much corruption there and, and what you're telling me is making my mouth just drop open and surprise. What is the best step that those who are hearing this message right now can take?
What, what's an action that they can take to be part of the solution?
Danielle Walters: So first I was really, really, really, if you in [00:16:00] Illinois and Chicago, because Governor Pritzker has announced that he's running again, in which he's a piece of crap. He's one of the ones, now, he's a billionaire and he wants to tell us now all these NGOs and that.
These that has been funded with these illegal aliens. He owned a lot of them. So he's getting richer and richer and richer off us. So he's the number one. He's the reason why that this trans LGBT agenda that's in our schools. I have teachers that I train. I'm a personal trainer. That's for my business. You are against you fitness.
I have teachers. That I train now our kids in Chicago cannot even read. We are at what for basic reading from ages from grade third, third through eighth grade. We are at a 30%. 30% of our kids are only reading at grade level. 30%. [00:17:00] Now in math only, it's, I think it's like 18%. Mm-hmm. Of pe of our kids. Third and grade, third through eighth can only do basic math.
That's 30% of in 18% math, 30% in reading. They don't teach the constitution because they don't, the Democrat party don't want you to know your rights because they know if you know your rights, then you can all this other garbage that they are trying to say, tell us, that's lawful. We'll know that. No, no, no.
That's not lawful. So we can't, our kids can't read. Our kids can't do basic math, but you want. To teach our kids that you can be a he and she, that you can identify as a man, or I mean a girl or a boy, and you don't even have to let the parents know. So I have teachers who come go to school and they're teaching fifth grade, sixth, I mean fifth and third grade, and they're coming to me breaking down because.[00:18:00]
They, they have to look these kids in the face and let these kids know that and teach them all this transgender ideolog that they know that these indoctrination, that they know these kids don't have a clue of what's going on, and this is what they're doing, indoctrinating our kids. So let them know about, you can have your sexual orientation at a young age, but.
And this is part of the curricular. So you can't say, Hey, I'm a Christian. I don't believe in that. This is not what I want to, I'm about, you can't say that because you gotta worry about your job. So this is a what you have to teach to these kids. And now the fact that they can't even call the parent and tell the parent, Hey, your kid wanna be is, is in school saying that their name is Diana and they wanna wear a dress or whatever, and we don't even have to tell you about it.
These are the things. That's happening in our schools right now. Pritzker, that's one of his, he touted that he was [00:19:00] the first to do this and to teach transgender history and things like that in our schools. So these are the policies that these pieces of garbage, our pushing into our community, entire schools, they don't care about reading, don't care about learning about math, anything like that.
But this is what they wanna teach.
Brian Hyde: Daniel, we've got about 30 seconds to wrap things up here. What is the website people can go to to get themselves better involved?
Danielle Walters: Okay. Yeah, so you can go to info@chicagoflipsred.com, info@chicagoflipsred.com or you can go to Chicago flips red, all hands on deck, Chicago flips red, all hands on deck.
And then, but like I said, the info@chicagoflipsred.com. You can message us and we'll get right back to you.
Brian Hyde: We are talking with Danielle Walters Daniel. I admire your fire and, and wish you the very best. I think you're gonna be getting things [00:20:00] done. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.
Danielle Walters: Thank you so much. And if you, whenever you want me back, I can come back 'cause I had a lot more to say.
Brian Hyde: You got it. This is the Perry State Wire Podcast.
Danielle Walters: Thank you so much.
Alerts Sign-up