Two families who were told to leave a Rogers Park motel that housed migrants for missing curfew by a few minutes have been sleeping in a park.
Alejandra Leon said city officials haven’t approached them about relocating to a new location since they were removed from the Super 8 Motel at Sheridan Road and Chase Avenue last weekend.
“I’m asking them to move us to another shelter, somewhere my children can be more comfortable,” Leon said. “We are families with a lot of principles, with a lot of values. We are humble people that came here to work hard. We aren’t bad people.”
But 49th Ward Ald. Maria Hadden told the Sun-Times Saturday night that she was told the families had been offered another shelter to stay at, and they had declined in favor of waiting for other options.
Hadden said she did not know details of the city’s offer of alternative housing, whether the families could eventually return to the motel or if they would be provided another housing.
A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office has not responded to multiple requests for more information.
At first, the two families of four slept in two donated tents at a park near the motel, she said. On Monday, they were forced into one tent after winds from a rainstorm nearly blew away the other tent.
About 2 p.m. Saturday, they were asked to leave the Super 8 because they had missed an 11 p.m. curfew the night before by seven minutes after taking their children out for pizza. Leon said they had gone out because the food they had been given was “old” and had made the children sick.
Leon, who arrived in Chicago last month from Venezuela, said the families were told they would be relocated to another shelter, but staff at the motel weren’t sure where.
Fearing their new location would not just house families but also single men and women, the families decided to stay outside the motel for the safety of their children.
“They didn’t really know where they were taking us,” Leon said, adding that they stayed outside in front of the motel for several hours until deciding to camp out in the park.
She said the two families have been struggling to find food and have been relying on donations from passersby. But Leon said she is mostly concerned about the health of her 5-year-old son who has asthma. She’s worried that if he has an emergency, he won’t be able to quickly find medical help.
The Leon family and the Castro Family, asylum-seekers from Venezuela, share a tent. “I’m asking them to move us to another shelter, somewhere my children can be more comfortable,” Alejandra Leon said. “We are families with a lot of principles. ... We are humble people that came here to work hard.”
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
“I can’t have my son like this,” said Leon of their current living situation. “It’s a big risk.”
She and her husband also have a 7-year-old daughter with them. Leon said it was unfair that the two families had been kicked out when, during their almost three weeks at the motel, they saw others disregard curfew multiple times and commit other violations without penalty.
“Why did they do this to us for missing curfew by a few minutes, minutes?” Leon asked.
City Hall contracted with the owners of the Super 8 motel to provide housing for 250 migrants, with a focus on families with young children, through December, Block Club Chicago reported.
The city has struggled to find housing for migrants, with many finding initial shelter on the floors of police stations, since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending busloads of migrants to Chicago last spring.
The overwhelming majority of the new arrivals have come from Venezuela, fleeing violence and economic collapse. Others have come from Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Russia.
