Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday announced an effort to get migrants out of city-run shelters within 60 days, while offering scant information about what will happen to them if they hit that deadline.
At a news conference marking passage of his first budget, Johnson announced the city is “implementing a tiered 60-day shelter stay limit, combined with robust case management and workforce access to move new arrivals through our system to self-sufficiency and economic stability.”
The mayor repeatedly demurred on questions surrounding how the 60-day limit would play out, saying more details would be available Friday. State and federal partners will be providing a “more expedited process” for migrants to be resettled and put on the pathway to work, he said, and the state will make an announcement about a new partnership Thursday, he said, which state officials confirmed.
The changes signal the city’s sharpest curtailment of migrant support since Johnson took office in May with a vow that his administration can provide enough for all Chicagoans, new and old.
Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, also offered limited details after the announcement, emphasizing there would be a “comprehensive approach” to the 60-day limit that will be associated with “people’s eligibility for work authorization, temporary protected status, other state benefits.”
She pointed to similar limits in New York and Denver.
New York Mayor Eric Adams announced last month the city would provide “60 days notice to families with children seeking asylum to find alternative housing along with intensified casework services to help them explore other housing options and take the next steps in their journeys.”
Denver officials announced in early October that any new adult migrant would only receive 14 days of shelter, while families with children would get 37 days. With the pressure on the city’s existing shelter system, a mayoral spokesman said, “We really have no choice.”
“No one will be kicked out if they’re able to demonstrate that they have made progress with seeking permanent housing,” Pacione-Zayas said, adding that there would be “comprehensive case management, all kinds of support” offered.
Of the more than 20,000 migrants that have landed in the city via bus or plane, 7,000 have been resettled and 3,000 have been reunited with family members or sponsors, Pacione-Zayas said.
Johnson separately announced that there would be added personnel working at the city’s landing zone and staging areas “to facilitate connections to other destinations for individuals who do not wish to stay in Chicago and reunite them with family members and sponsors outside of our city.”
Countless migrants have turned around after reaching the city to head back to their home countries or Texas.
Shortly after Johnson’s announcement, panic broke out among those who help to run the shelters and migrants themselves.
Many shelter workers heard about the mayor’s vague announcement from social media and hoped asylum-seekers wouldn’t find out until they had more clarity, said Gabriela Castillo, a member of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council that since June has managed the shelter for single males and females in the Gage Park field house.
Upon entry, migrants in shelters are given notice that they have 30 days to leave, but it has not been enforced, she added.
There are currently 388 people sheltering in the field house who have had a “very difficult time” getting apartments, despite a state rental program that provides six months of assistance, Castillo said.
Few migrants have been able to leave because landlords are not willing to rent to them, concerned how their tenants will be able to make payments after state assistance runs out, she said.
Most migrants still don’t have a stable job and stay in shelters for three to five months, according to Castillo, as they begin to apply for temporary protected status or a federal work authorization.
”I hope (city officials) have a plan, even if it means making sure that they’re put in winterized tents,” Castillo lamented. Perhaps “we don’t need to be alarmed, but for now, we’re all worried.”
Meanwhile, temperatures were expected to again drop below freezing this weekend as Johnson hinted at a Thursday announcement with state officials that would address the 1,800 migrants sleeping at Chicago police stations and the 570 others camped out at O’Hare International Airport. That total is down from last month’s peak of 3,800 combined, and the pace of buses has also slowed during recent weeks.
Starting this weekend, Johnson said, the city will begin cracking down on “bus companies that disregard our curfews, landing zone locations, and loading and unloading rules,” an apparent attempt to curtail the sometimes chaotic arrival of buses at all hours.
Over the past six months, escalating waves of buses have spelled the mayor’s most vexing and unexpected crisis as he’s faced pressure from aldermen to prioritize longtime residents, particularly from disinvested Black communities, before racking up towering costs on the migrants.
The budget team has previously projected the city’s total costs on migrants from August 2022 to the end of this year topping $360 million, but the mayor only allocated $150 million for the mission in next year’s budget that passed Wednesday.
Pacione-Zayas said she anticipates expenses to decrease in the coming months: two thirds of those working with the city’s shelter contractor, Favorite Staffing, are now local hires from within the region, “that’s saving the city about $1.5 million a week,” she said.
Efforts are also underway to replace more expensive shelter options with a “lower per-person cost,” she said. A request for proposals to provide meals to those staying at shelters will close later this month, she added, meaning a more affordable and local option will be in place by January.
Those costs have not only hit the city: in its annual economic and budget forecast Wednesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s budget office said “potential spending pressures related to asylum seekers” and other cost increases would use up nearly $1 billion of an anticipated $1.4 billion revenue increase for the current year.
The state, to date, has allocated about $478 million to the relief effort since migrants began arriving in August 2022, with “more to come,” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said, declining to offer more specifics.
Toward the end of the summer, Johnson began to imply the city was out of financial runway while sharpening his calls for the federal and state governments to step up rather than let Chicago bear the brunt of caring for the migrants.
But he has refrained from suggesting, even implicitly, that asylum-seekers should skip Chicago and go elsewhere.
Wednesday’s remarks reflect that the mayor is exploring shifting lanes, though he maintained his values remain the same.
Asked whether the city is trying to get rid of the migrants, Johnson told reporters “We’re putting some restrictions, right, and some boundaries and parameters in place, but the ultimate goal is to make sure these families are treated with dignity.”
“This is the balanced approach that I believe that the people of Chicago have been asking for,” Johnson said. But he added later, “We will always be a welcoming city and a sanctuary city.”