Where Will Migrants Go When Their 60-Day Shelter Stays Expire? Volunteers Blast City’s ‘Reckless’ Process

CHICAGO — For more than a year, the city has scrambled to house thousands of migrants who have been bused here from border states.

Finally — after months on police station floors and tents outside — most have been placed in shelters. But volunteers and migrants say the situation remains dire, and the city’s new 60-day limit on shelter stays is adding to their stress and confusion.

As of Monday, at least 12 police stations are no longer housing migrants: Wentworth (2nd), Grand Crossing (3rd), South Chicago (4th), Chicago Lawn (8th), Deering (9th), Harrison (11th), Austin (15th), Jefferson Park (16th), Albany Park (17th), Near North (18th) and Morgan Park (22nd), according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and volunteers. The Rogers Park (24th) District hasn’t had migrants for months due to construction at the station. 

The city has been hustling get asylum seekers out of the cold, including partnering with more than a dozen churches to temporarily house people, expanding shelter capacity and opening shelters.

Fewer than 500 migrants were still in police stations as of Monday, officials said. That’s down from a high of about 3,300 Oct. 16.

A little over 13,400 people are staying in the city’s 26 shelters as of Tuesday. That’s nearly double the 6,600 in shelters Aug. 31.

But while the city moves to finally get people out of the cold, thousands are being shuffled into an overburdened, overcrowded shelter system where migrants and volunteers say the conditions are poor.

The food is bad, there is little privacy and the social services available to migrants are patchy, migrants and advocates say.

Moving migrants into shelters gets them indoors, but it also separates people from the support systems of volunteers and neighbors who routinely brought them clothes, food and medication; helped them enroll their kids in school; find work; get medical care or simply gave them something to do, advocates said.

The confusion, lack of communication from city leaders and substandard conditions likely is prompting some migrants to leave shelters to get help from volunteers or find other places to stay — even if it’s outside in the frigid cold, advocates say.

The police stations will no longer be an option, as the city will no longer provide assistance at “closed” stations, said Mary May, spokesperson for the emergency management office.

“The city is giving themselves more work, they’re giving the volunteers more work, and now you’re displacing people one more time,” said Erika Villegas, a volunteer who helped migrants on the Southwest Side. She said the 60-day limit is just restarting the clock on this broken process.

A ‘Reckless’ Process

The city began clearing out police stations in mid-November. For months, hundreds of people sheltered inside on cold floors and outside in tents, with few bathrooms and other facilities, while relying on the generosity of neighbors, volunteers and mutual aid networks.

As police stations are cleared out, migrants won’t be able to get that same assistance, May said.

If people show up at a closed police station seeking emergency shelter, they’ll be directed to a district station still accepting people, May said. Once all the stations are cleared, meals and service requests for temporary shelter placement won’t be provided, she said. 

The city said people will need to make shelter requests at the new “landing zone” — the area near Downtown where most buses carrying migrants drop them off. The same goes for migrants who reach the end of their 60-day shelter limit, a rule Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration rolled out last month.

One volunteer said the process of moving people out of the police stations has been a bit “reckless,” since it comes with short notice and mutual aid workers aren’t able to give migrants much information about what comes next.

Jaime Groth Searle, who helped migrants at the Chicago Lawn district for months, said the station was cleared out two weeks ago. Because of a lack of communication with the city, volunteers had little information for migrants about where they were going, how many belongings they could bring or what services would they be offered, she said. 

In the absence of a coherent city plan, volunteers helped migrants find work or enroll their kids in schools around the police station they were placed in. It’s a challenge to be told with one day’s notice they could be moved to a completely different side of the city, Groth Searle said. 

“We really need to illuminate a path for them better than we have been,” said Searle, founder of the neighborhood group Southwest Collective.

Even though the conditions at the police stations are egregious, “it is some stability,” Searle said.

Difficult Conditions, Lack Of Services At Shelters

Some migrants are finding other challenges in shelters.

People have told Block Club the food is bad and children won’t eat it, they aren’t getting services they were promised and the lack of privacy is difficult. 

Genesis Luquez, 30, was outside the recently cleared out Deering district police station Monday. She is living in a shelter nearby, but she held a sign asking for food donations.

“The shelter, they do provide a warm bed and food, but the meals are terrible,” Luquez said. “It’s just so spicy, I can’t eat it without getting sick. We wouldn’t be out here begging for food or money if the food in the shelter wasn’t so spicy.”

Osnil Perez, 24, a Venezuelan migrant that’s been in Chicago for a little over a month, agreed. He stood outside the station with Luquez on Monday.

“The bathrooms are clean, the common areas with all our beds, it’s clean and warm too, which is much better than how we were living,” Perez said of the shelter, speaking in Spanish. “The food is just bad, it’s too spicy, and kept sending me to the bathroom.”

One family from Ecuador was staying in a tent close to the Albany Park police station for over a month before getting placed in a city-run shelter on the North Side, said the father, Alfredo. 

After one of the children got chicken pox, the family was quarantined in a hotel, Alfredo said. When they were allowed to go back to the shelter, Alfredo didn’t like how it was being run and got kicked out after arguing with staff members, he said.

Now, Alfredo splits his time sleeping at the Lincoln (20th) District station and in the tent near the Northwest Side station, since it’s no longer accepting migrants.  

Sleeping at the station is better than the shelter because there are no rules, and volunteers provide helpful assistance and resources, Alfredo said. But he said he ultimately wants to find permanent housing and a job more than anything else. Even though he tries not to sleep outside, sometimes it feels like the only option, Alfredo said. 

“This is a little better, but it’s still not a solution. … It’s a complicated mess,” he said. “Some of my family are still at the shelter.”

In a Saturday email to local officials, a sergeant at the Deering district said the communication gaps and free-for-all at stations is making migrants hesitant to leave.

“Many are in and out at all hours of the night,” he wrote, adding that one family vanished from the station after refusing shelter placement. He didn’t know where they ended up.

“Why follow ‘rules’ at a shelter when there are no rules at district stations?”

Emily Wheeler is a project manager for the Faith Community Initiative, a coalition of churches that’s supported migrants for months — separate from the collaboration recently announced by the city.

Wheeler works with volunteers at police stations to match families waiting for space in a city-run shelter with a church that’s able to house them, she said. In some cases, she’s secured church housing for families who were kicked out of shelters or chose to leave them.

The lack of consistent services at shelters is driving some migrants to seek help from volunteers at police stations or find other places to stay, Wheeler said. 

Wheeler tried asking the city to create some kind of fact sheet so migrants know exactly what they’re getting when they go into a city shelter, but she was told not to assure people of anything since there’s inconsistency around what each shelter offers, she said. 

“I think most people, when they’re faced with the unknown, they would rather take a risk and do it themselves, maintain control over their lives, as opposed to going into an unknown situation,” she said. 

Villegas, who worked closely with migrants at the Chicago Lawn district, said word is spreading among newly arrived asylum seekers about the shelter conditions, and some families were wary about going. 

“They felt like they wanted to stay at the police station, but this weather is not conducive to people living outdoors,” she said. “So, that’s why we encouraged people to go.” 

The biggest concern among volunteers and faith partners continues to be: What will happen to migrants when they’re kicked out of shelters in early 2024 after their 60-day limit is up?

City officials previously have said extensions to stay in a shelter beyond 60 days will only be granted in “extenuating circumstances” like a medical emergency or severe weather, officials said. 

The Rev. Beth Brown, of Lincoln Park Presbyterian, said her church has housed migrants since 2019. For the families she’s hosted most recently, it took her months to find them stable housing. 

“I think we’re going to see a situation that’s going to get far, far worse once the 60-day notices start,” she said. “We believe it takes anywhere from nine months to a year to get someone stable enough that they can then transition into an apartment and be successfully independent on their own financially.”

Brown said she wouldn’t be surprised to see people opt out of being housed in the “winterized” base camps the city is building — one of which was halted in the early stages of construction as the state assesses its environmental report.

“If you’re a migrant, you’re going to ask yourself, ‘Is this a better situation than the police station where I was?’” she said. “I think one of the things that the city is not taking into account are the returning people. They’re going to go back to a police station if the base camp is not livable.” 

‘This Is Not A Solution To Be Here’

While some police stations are closed, the Ogden (10th) District station is one of the many still housing migrants.

Over a dozen tents were seen outside last week, as men huddled near the station entrance wearing winter gear. Inside, the station was full of migrant families huddled on the floor. 

Friends Humberto Roja, Anderson Gonzales and Jorge Rodrigo were sleeping outside in tents because there is no room inside, they said. With low temperatures and an “unbearable” cold, the men say they can’t wait for a shelter placement and to be warm, despite hearing that the shelters could be worse.

“Never in my life have I experienced a cold like this,” Gonzales said in Spanish. “We were outside for a minute for breakfast, and it was unbearable, our fingers were frozen. It’s too cold.”

About 50 men and families were inside the at the Shakespeare (14th) District station Wednesday. Because of the station’s layout and minimal outdoor space, people have been able to sleep inside, police officers and migrants told Block Club. 

Jose Alvaré, who has been at the station since September, has heard conditions at shelters are bleak and the rules are stringent, but he hopes to be in a shelter by next week so he can have a temporary address, he said.

The kindness from volunteers, nearby churches and police officers at the station has been tremendous, which makes it harder to leave, the man said.

“I’ve heard that the shelters are pretty crazy, and I have friends who were here and are now in shelters. … They come back here for food and stuff,” Alvaré said. “It’s better here, but I’ll go to the shelter because this is not a solution to be here, and it’s part of the process.”

---

Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast: