Two Chicago City Council members whose wards are the planned sites of the first two large migrant camps say they don’t want other key projects to be neglected as a result.
Ald. Ronnie Mosley (21st), who first learned of the site in his ward in September, and Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th), who learned of the site in her ward in mid-October, want guarantees that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s tent cities won’t be built at the expense of long-term development for their wards.
Mosley, who told the Sun-Times Monday he was “outraged” by a decision to proceed with a migrant camp at 115th and Halsted streets, fears the tent shelter will mean putting off a long-awaited development slated to break ground next year. That project, Morgan Park Commons, is expected to bring hundreds of housing units, a park and nearly 20,000 square feet of retail space.
“We cannot sacrifice our project for this,” said the freshman alderman, noting a decline in population has retailers moving out, including a Walmart that closed in April. “We’re scheduled to break ground as soon as the ground thaws after the winter. It has to go forward.”
A City Council committee voted Monday to accept the donation of land in Mosley’s ward. Michelle Woods of the city’s Department of Assets, Information and Services spoke at that meeting, saying the long-term plan is for Morgan Park Commons to be built later at that site, but Mosley said starting the project is more urgent.
A vacant lot at 115th and Halsted streets on the Far South Side, the city’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate approved the purchase of for $1 on Monday in order to “establish and operate a migrant shelter.”
Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Like Mosley, Ramirez expressed sympathy with the city’s urgent search for a solution to housing thousands of incoming migrants but questioned bringing them to the vacant parcel at 38th Street and California Avenue in her Southwest Side ward.
“We can’t rely on neighborhoods that are already feeling so much distress to take on the brunt of it,” said the Brighton Park native.
If the tent camp is built, the freshman alderwoman hopes to parlay that into more support for the community, as is the plan with at least one other shelter.
Local Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th) called the city’s purchase of a former Marine Corps facility in North Park, which will be converted into a temporary shelter, a “tremendous opportunity.”
Future “potential uses”, said Nugent, “could include working with Chicago Public Schools to create an early childhood learning center, or partnering with the Chicago Park District to make more riverfront parkland accessible to the community.”
Ramirez said her ward, which has “the least amount of green space, no community center and no senior services,” could use something similar.
“We’re willing to help here but you have to help us,” Ramirez said.
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.
Southwest Side residents protest the city’s plant to bring one of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s migrant tent shelters to the Brighton Park neighborhood at 38th Street and California Avenue.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times