EVEN BEFORE MANY Venezuelan migrants made their way to Chicago, the city’s streets were littered with tents and belongings of unhoused individuals.
With the wind chill hovering around 15 degrees below zero on Tuesday, November 28, Senator Mattie Hunter (D-3rd) praised Governor Pritzker for stepping up to help more than 3,000 migrants still sleeping at Chicago police stations, with 1,000 still living outside in unheated tents.
“Whatever we do for the migrants, I want the same services for our people here in Chicago who have been homeless for a very long time,” Senator Hunter told the Chicago Crusader on Monday, November 27. “And whatever we do for the migrants, any disaster plan must be holistic and transparent.”
Not happy with the timetable the city has taken to house migrants, Governor Pritzker held a press conference on November 27 and said, “Asylum seekers have travelled thousands of miles and entered this country legally in search of a better life, and we cannot allow them to be met with sub-freezing temperatures and inadequate shelter.”
Like the governor, Senator Hunter understands why help must be given to the migrants and added, “We have to help them because it’s too costly to send them back home,” she told the Chicago Crusader.
Hunter said there are a number of businesses throughout the state, especially in central Illinois, and northwestern Illinois, which are looking for workers for hotels and restaurants. She said some migrants are professionals like doctors and lawyers.
“We need them here in Chicago as well, especially if they have a medical background,” Hunter said, referring to the many help wanted signs everywhere. “Nursing homes and senior residential programs need workers.”
According to the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications, migrants still living in tents outside police stations are there because there is no more room inside the stations.
However, that too is causing another problem for the migrants because they can’t be inside the police stations during the day.
Since 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has bussed 13,000 asylum-seeking migrants to Chicago, creating a financial nightmare for the mayor and sparking an anti-migrant movement in some neighborhoods like Brighton Park and South Shore.
Even the mayor has been hit with lawsuits in opposition to his selecting the former South Shore High School as a shelter for the migrants. The lead plaintiffs in that lawsuit were Natasha Dunn and Darnell Jones.
However, they dropped the lawsuit when they learned the school is no longer a site for a shelter.
With the daily bus drop-offs of migrants in Chicago, this same group again filed a more expansive lawsuit against the city opposing the two sites, Brighton Park and Little Village, where a base camp in Brighton Park and a brick-and-mortar site in Little Village will be built for 2,200 migrants.
The lawsuit, which also calls for an audit of providing housing for migrants, alleges that it is a “nuisance” for the city to use public buildings to house migrants. It also accuses the city of allegedly violating zoning laws around the high school and other public sites where the administration has chosen to build winterized base camps.
But with the wind chill factor now 15 below zero, Hunter said, “It’s a good thing that the state, including the Illinois Department of Housing, is stepping into this migrant issue.”
“I think that everybody should be taken care of. It is also important to have transparency when making plans for the migrants,” Hunter said. “It is my understanding that a number of businesses around the state need workers in these small towns.”
That is why Pritzker has selected two new sites, which will be funded by $160 million and $478 million in state funds for FY 2023 and 2024 to deal with the migrant issue.
On Tuesday, November 28, Pritzker said, “The city and the state are working together to make sure we’re doing the right thing for migrants who are out in the elements during the worst time of the year.” Ironically, the mayor was expecting seven more buses of migrants later on that same day.
Pritzker said in working with the city, beds will be given out to families and those who are disabled who are currently sleeping outside police stations. Mayor Brandon Johnson said he is expecting EPA results by the end of this week for the Brighton Park land that residents say is contaminated.
The governor said the two sites will provide housing for 2,000 migrants who have just arrived, and they will be able to apply for work permits. Besides having a warm place to live, both sites will provide food and hygiene necessities, and help in applying for temporary protected status needed to get a job. This will be funded by the state.
According to Pritzker, both of these sites will be extensions of the city’s current migrant shelter system, along with the New Life Centers of Chicagoland that the state gave a contract to for ground support, communications and a link to resources.
Pritzker has also looped in the Illinois Department of Human Services for additional support and expanded resources. To make sure there is an efficient transition, Pritzker is providing $30 million for an intake center that includes a welcome team for new arrivals who may want to live elsewhere or may have a sponsor.
The governor is also providing $65 million in additional funds needed to expand wraparound services, in addition to the state’s existing services to city shelters, which will facilitate acquiring work permits and employment resources.
Hunter emphasized that the same services must be provided to “our own homeless people” who have been sleeping under viaducts and tent cities along the expressways prior to the arrival of migrants.
“We need to take care of both,” she stated. Hunter wants the migrants to be vetted and find jobs for them throughout the state where there is a worker shortage, including Chicago.
