City officials will begin relocating 791 migrants from five Chicago Park District facilities used as shelters as early as this Saturday so that summer programmes can proceed as scheduled, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced on Monday.
Nearby residents had been demanding that the five shelters at Brands Park, Gage Park, Piotrowski Park, Broadway Armory Park and Leone Park be returned to park district use before the start of summer programmes, including day camps.
Five shelters – two on the Southwest Side, one on the Northwest Side and two on the Far North Side – were turned into emergency shelters in May as the Johnson administration struggled to find space for thousands of migrants forced to spend the night in police stations across the city. Johnson said in a statement:
“I am proud of the efforts of my administration, our partners, and the many Chicagoans who stepped up to welcome new arrivals by providing shelter in our Park District field houses at a time when this was clearly needed. We are grateful to the alderpersons and communities who have embraced new neighbors with open arms, and we are pleased that these park facilities will be transitioned back to their intended purpose in time for summer programming.”
At the beginning of January, there were 1,181 people in the five shelters slated for closure, according to city data. That means the population of shelters has dropped by about 50 per cent in the past three months.
City officials have promised to transfer migrants to nearby shelters, and “children are expected to remain in the same school during and after the transition,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
On 15 March, authorities announced that families with school-age children would be allowed to stay in city shelters until the end of the school year in June, giving them a reprieve from the city’s 60-time limit on migrants staying in shelters.
As of Monday, 23 city facilities had fewer than 10,600 residents, down more than 10 percent from March 1, according to city data.
