Chicago’s insufficient funding for migrant arrivals will get help from the state with a $160 million for an intake center, a winterized shelter and other assistance aimed at addressing the bottlenecks keeping migrants from resettling, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday.
Pritzker’s announcement comes a day after City Council passed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first budget, which includes $150 million for migrant arrivals, less than half of an estimated need to address the crisis.
Almost 25,000 migrants have been bussed or flown to the city since last year. Sheltering, feeding and resettling them has been a major strain on the city’s budget over the past year.
The new funds, which come from an Illinois Department of Human Services surplus, will be broken down into program aimed at fixing a process that has left thousands of migrants sleeping at police stations and airports.
The state will provide $30 million to set up a migrant intake center.
Another $65 million will be provided for a winterized shelter site where up to 2,000 migrants can stay for up to 6 months.
The remaining $65 million will be sent to the city to help pay for legal and other support services.
The state-funded plan being rolled out in Chicago is similar to one that’s being implemented in New York. Chicago officials got a firsthand look at New York’s response during a visit last month.
Asylum-seekers wave as a bus leaves to take them from Union Station to a refugee center in Chicago in August 2022.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times file photo
Cook County Health has been providing medical care for migrants in city shelters so far, serving more than 15,000 patients across 68,000 appointments, a county spokesperson said in early November.
That care is often contingent upon migrants being in a city shelter, leaving the thousands of migrants at police stations and airports reliant on emergency room visits or volunteer medical assistance.
The county has spent over $30 million on the effort.
Michael Loria is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.