Chicago to have one unified system for homeless and migrants, city and state officials say

Sam Paler-Ponce, interim associate director of policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, said combining the systems is a “move in the right direction.” The biggest benefit, he said, is that asylum-seekers will have a wider array of supportive services made available to them: employment, food and health care. But combining the systems could also lead to an “influx in shelter bed demand,” he said. According to recent data from the organization, there are more than 68,000 people currently experiencing homelessness in Chicago. Nearly 37,000 people accessed homeless services throughout the year. These figures don’t include migrants.

As the city faces budget concerns and closes shelters, volunteers and migrant advocates expect an increase in street homelessness and people “doubled up,” or sharing a house with others due to economic hardship or a similar reason. They say the solution is to provide “wraparound” services and affordable housing, instead of increasing shelter capacity.

Mayor Brandon Johnson has already closed more than 10 shelters from the height of shelter operations in mid-January. He has also imposed 60-day-limits for migrants staying at shelters, with case-by-case exemptions for people with medical conditions, pregnant women and families with children, among other qualifications.The number of evictions from shelters was slow when they began in mid-March, but has recently increased, with 51 people leaving the system on Saturday. A total of 270 individuals had exited the system as of Sunday, and that number will likely go up through the end of April.

There are several key demographic differences between migrants staying in shelters and Chicagoans experiencing homelessness, said Jenn Torres, a mutual aid volunteer who has helped migrants across the city.

Torres said asylum-seekers who have trekked for thousands of miles to make it to Chicago have distinct mental health needs, for instance, and there are far more families.

The Chicago Public Schools system is federally required to support the enrollment and education of students who are homeless or in temporary living situations. This number has gone up substantially over the past year, providing a window into the number of migrant children relying on city services. There were 22,250 students in temporary living situations enrolled at the end of March — a 48% increase from last March, and more than ever recorded at this time of year, according to data provided by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

Torres worries about the Chicago homeless shelter system’s ability to provide for migrants’ needs. To make matters more difficult, most asylum seekers can’t work legally.

“We have a lackluster shelter system to begin with,” she said. “But (migrants) can’t pay rent, and they have children.”

She and other volunteers are already preparing for a time when, like last summer, migrants may be camped out in police station lobbies across the city.

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