Less than 24 hours before Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Saturday deadline to begin evicting migrants from shelters, officials announced Friday that they will instead start Sunday — and only evict adults without children under age 18.
Evictions will begin with 35 individuals from three of the city’s 23 shelters, a massive departure from the nearly 6,000 people the city previously said would have to exit March 16. The number of people evicted will grow to more than 2,000 — 1,700 of them men — by the end of April.
Those exiting shelters will be able to reapply for a bed at the city’s designated “landing zone” at 800 S. Desplaines St., but they will be expected to get there on their own. The shelters individuals will exit Sunday are on Elston Avenue near Goose Island, the former Wadsworth Elementary school building in Woodlawn and the Gage Park Field House.
City officials including Johnson’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Family and Support Services Commissioner Brandie Knazze and Health Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo Ige announced the plans Friday afternoon.
The mayor wasn’t present for the briefing but sent out a written statement.
“By encouraging resettlement,” said Johnson, touting the evictions as a way of encouraging migrants to become independent, “while also providing case-specific extensions with a focus on health and safety, we are advancing a pathway to stability and self-sufficiency.”
Around 11,200 migrants are staying in city shelters from Rogers Park to West Lawn, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Nine of those shelters are for single adults, holding around 3,500 people.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) lauded the decision to exempt families with school-age children through June 10.
Chair of the City Council’s Housing Committee, Sigcho-Lopez called it a “step in the right direction” to avoid exacerbating a crisis that has already left 20,000 Chicago Public Schools students unhoused.
But, he said, “I hope that, in June, we’re not in the same position.”
“It is a step in the right direction to make sure that we don’t have children unhoused. But there are [already] children unhoused in Chicago,” he said. “We don’t want more, and we don’t want any.”
Asked why officials waited so long to clarify who would be evicted, leaving families under the impression they would have to leave imminently, Pacione-Zayas demurred.
“It’s a part of our ongoing analysis,” she said. “Because this has never been done before. You’re literally building the plane while flying.”
The plan does model one in place in New York City, which began evicting solo adults last fall and families this year. New Yorkers cautioned Chicagoans to “expect utter chaos.”
Migrant advocates called the late announcement deliberate.
“Clearly, the only reason to delay letting families know that they can stay is to try to cause people to move through fear,” said Lydia Wong, a longtime volunteer with migrants around the city. “This places families in vulnerable positions, pressuring people to move to dangerous situations whether in Chicago or elsewhere.”
The changing evictions plan comes amid a burgeoning measles outbreak at the city’s biggest shelter, where many are expected to quarantine for 21 days after being vaccinated recently.
Johnson’s newly appointed health commissioner, Ige, said that all eligible migrants at that shelter on Halsted Street had been vaccinated. The city will prioritize providing vaccines at six other shelters this weekend and early next week.
Ige did not clarify which shelters but said they were ones with families that had low vaccination rates or ones for adults who had been potentially exposed to the virus.
All migrants evicted from shelters would not be allowed to reapply for a bed without being vaccinated for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, or chicken pox, depending on age. So far, Ige said there has been little vaccine hesitancy.
The changing plan also comes after the outcry from alderpersons. Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) said he has “more questions than answers” about the mayor’s broad-based exemption.
“What happens to kids after the school year is over? Does that make it any less disruptive between one school year and the next if folks can’t find work [or] if they don’t have any rental assistance and they end up homeless on the street?” said Vasquez, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Vasquez also called out the move to boot migrants days before the city votes on a Johnson-supported ballot initiative to provide a source of funding for people experiencing homelessness.
“At the same time that we’re talking about trying to pass ‘Bring Chicago Home,’” he said, “the city and the mayor are actively going to be evicting people out of the only home they know.”
“You can’t in one breath say you’re gonna look to solve homelessness while adding to the problem in the other breath.”
Vasquez also argued that there needs to be “more planning and transparency, and we haven’t seen either” one, questioning the decision to wait until Friday to announce evicting 35 people Sunday.
“There’s just a bunch of things that are not well thought out and don’t take into account how they’re going to harm people and how it’s going to lead to more homelessness on the streets,” the chairman said, noting the state had offered to open more shelters.
“They’re not gonna end up at the landing zone. They’re going to end up living right by the shelter they know because that’s the neighborhood they know,” he said. “You’re gonna see people in tents, on the street, in viaducts, on highways, on your trains trying to survive like any other person who can’t find shelter would do.”
Pacione-Zayas reiterated Friday the city’s position that evictions will save money.
“These are some of our more expensive shelters to operate, and what we’re trying to do is optimize the resources that we have,” Pacione-Zayas said.
Many shelters operate under costly private leases. The one on Elston Avenue, for instance, which has been open for nearly 120 days, holding as many as 1,000 people, has cost the city over $2 million to rent, based on data shared by the city.
New York City launched its policy for similar reasons and only about a quarter of the 37,000 individuals forced to leave Big Apple shelters are still in city care, officials of that city said.
Throughout the migrant influx however, as migrants camped out at police stations, many have felt that single adults have been disregarded by city officials, and Annie Gomberg, a longtime advocate said this was a continuation of that.
“These are not people who lack motivation to get out. They lack pathways,” said Gomberg, referring to the high barriers many face to working legally in this country. State officials confirmed this week that only around 10% of those in shelters would be eligible for work authorizations.
She also noted many solo adult migrants are not much older than 18.
“Speaking as a mom here: Do we really think a bunch of 20-, 22-year-old guys with no support are going to be living as mature adults?” she asked. “They are kids, too.”
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.
