As a powerful snowstorm and below-freezing temps bear down on Chicago, migrants facing eviction from shelters next week won’t get booted — though those at the city’s designated “landing zone” for new arrivals remain confined to buses.
The city had planned to evict dozens of migrants who had reached the 60-day limit starting Tuesday, but, citing the extreme cold, officials set back the exit date a week at a news conference Friday.
After eviction, migrants will be able to reapply for shelter at the “landing zone” at 800 S. Desplaines St., where more than 140 new arrivals are sleeping on CTA buses waiting for placement in city shelters, including 22 minors, according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
There are no permanent structures at the site and almost all were sheltering inside the buses, where many have said conditions are crowded and uncomfortable.
“There’s about 60 people on there,” said one migrant from Venezuela Friday, “sleeping on the seats, underneath, everywhere.”
The 30-year-old was standing outside waiting to see if a car would come bringing donations, namely boots.
“My feet are frozen,” he said, pointing to his soaked gym shoes. “I stand out here a while until I can’t stand it, go back in to warm up and then back outside again.”
New arrivals receive some winter clothes from the city, but often many are reliant on volunteers for necessities like shoes, gloves and hats.
Mayor Brandon Johnson addressed the lack of necessities at the news conference.
“We want to provide as much care as we possibly can to these families, and we’re doing just that,” he said. But “without the federal government stepping in, this condition is not sustainable.”
The city has received around 40,000 migrants since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began busing them from the border in August 2022.
Around 14,600 are currently housed at city shelters, where evictions were set to begin Tuesday, starting with a few dozen migrants and more throughout the rest of the week.
Those have now been delayed until Monday Jan. 22.
The city did not answer how many eviction notices would come due that day, although it could be as many as several hundred, according to a Sun-Times analysis of city data.
A stay in the city’s eviction policy is exactly what many volunteers have been pushing for, writing letters and circulating other petitions.
Contributing by Mary Norkol.
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.