Near West Side residents expressed support and apprehension about the city’s plan to again house asylum-seekers at a temporary shelter in Greektown.
As the city grapples with a migrant housing crisis, scrambling to find shelter for the thousands who have arrived here by buses and planes since August of last year, Ald. Bill Conway (34th) confirmed Wednesday that the deal to move new arrivals to the Parthenon Guest House, 310 S. Halsted St., is done.
But the move-in date has been moved back a week, to Sept. 15.
“I’m confident that we can do this in a safe and secure manner,” Conway said at the meeting Wednesday at the Merit School of Music in the West Loop.
The Parthenon was previously used as a temporary migrant shelter from October 2022 to February, when it held 136 people.
“That happened without any incidents,” Conway said. “It was so uneventful that most people were not even aware that it was happening, and I’m confident that we can do that again.”
Four security officers will guard the shelter around the clock, Conway said.
Officials placed the Parthenon’s capacity at 196. It’s expected to house single adults without children, but that plan is “still under consideration,” officials said. They also expected the Parthenon to reach that capacity by late September.
Each room will house multiple migrants, with some rooms holding four to six people.
City officials will evaluate the Parthenon’s effectiveness as a shelter after six months, as they have done with other temporary shelters throughout the city, to determine whether to continue housing migrants, said Danny Castaneda, project manager with the city’s Department of Family and Support Services.
Many in the crowd applauded when others spoke in support of housing migrants at the Parthenon.
But some residents remained worried about how neighbors can be assured they would be safe with nearly 200 people moving into the building.
This week, several migrants were arrested on suspicion of threatening or battering police officers at the 12th District police station.
Jamie Brown said her daughter attends the daycare next door to the Parthenon, and she was concerned about the city not conducting background checks on migrants.
Beatriz Ponce de León, deputy mayor for immigrant, migrant and refugee rights, noted that asylum-seekers undergo screening at the southern border.
“We have asked the National Immigration Justice Center to give us more clarity on the types of background checks and processing,” Ponce de León said. “At this point, I cannot guarantee that anybody that comes into any of our shelters has had a background check that we can look at reliably, but most people that do cross the border do go through some type of screening.”
Neighbors also asked questions about what the city’s plan is to handle situations if migrants crowd the street and disrupt shoppers, tourists and visitors.
“To be frank, we have seen some of these issues pop up at other shelters,” Castaneda said.
“Right now, when we welcome folks at a shelter, first and foremost we need to educate people on our cultural norms, not just in Chicago, but in a new country, in a new state,” Castaneda said. “It’s also very different to be in an urban area, so we’re educating them both through the shelter staff and the city staff.”
The city officials conducting Wednesday’s meeting continued to stress the need for additional federal assistance, including a call on the federal government to approve temporary work authorization for migrants.
They also highlighted the need, and hinted at plans, for a long-term housing solution for migrants.
“With a steady stream of buses of asylum-seekers arriving in our city for a year now, it has become increasingly clear that the current patchwork approach of scrambling to set up temporary shelters is inefficient and unsustainable,” Conway said.
Chicago has taken in more than 13,500 migrants since August 2022, most of whom are arriving in Texas from Venezuela and other countries in South and Central America. Officials said that 118 buses of migrants have arrived in the city since May.
About 1,940 migrants are currently being housed at police stations and at O’Hare and Midway airports, officials said Wednesday.
