AUSTIN — Amundsen Park’s field house will reopen to the public Monday after nearly two months of speculation and neighbor outcry over its possible use as a migrant shelter.
Staff will return to the field house Monday and park programs will resume shortly after, Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) said in a statement Wednesday night.
It is unclear when the field house closed to neighbors after city officials said in late September they planned to convert the facility, 6200 W. Bloomingdale Ave., into an emergency shelter housing 200 people.
Those plans, however, were fiercely opposed by neighbors who said the shelter would remove one of a few public amenities in the neighborhood.
Officials put the shelter plans “on hold” in early October in response to the backlash before scrapping the plan altogether this week, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office said Thursday in a joint statement with the Chicago Park District and Taliaferro.
“Residents of this ward… came together to stand strong in keeping this community asset available to residents,” Taliaferro said in an email to constituents. “I thank the Mayor and his administration for listening and never closing the door to our conversations and continuing to work with my office and the residents towards this solution.”
The city was able to halt the Amundsen Park shelter plans because of other shelters coming online and a reduction in the number of new migrant arrivals, Johnson’s office said in the statement.
A migrant base camp with a capacity of 4,000 people is under construction in Brighton Park and a new city program is placing migrants in churches, including at Austin’s Grace and Peace Church.
“The City continues to evaluate additional shelter capacity on an ongoing basis and will continue to provide updates as necessary,” the joint statement read.
Five Chicago Park field houses throughout the city have been turned into migrant shelters, including at Brands Park in Avondale and Gage Park. They are among a network of 25 shelters opened to house over 23,000 migrants who have been bussed to Chicago.
But Amundsen Park neighbors pushed back, saying they were concerned about an increase in crime and lack of access to the park for the community. While many at the meeting expressed sympathy for the migrants’ plight, they believed a shelter was a burdensome ask of a community already lacking resources.
After city officials placed the Amundsen Park plan on hold, officials instead looked at using a nearby office building as a shelter. Those plans are also not moving forward, Taliaferro said.
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