CHICAGO (CBS) — Some migrant families say they are being kicked out of shelters — even though there is plenty of room left for them.
The city of Chicago is conducting its 60-day shelter stay policyand offers to reprocess it asylum seeker who asks to regain access to the reception system. To date, the city said 970 individuals have left the shelter system due to the 60 day limit for shelter stays– and of those, 554 have returned to the landing zone at Polk and Desplaines streets for processing, and 536 have re-entered the shelter system.
But some parents choose not to return to the landing zone at all. They would rather take their chances and risk homelessness after their shelter limits have expired because they don’t trust the city to do the right thing.
Rosa – who asked to shield her identity – has been in the Pilsen migrant shelter on South Halsted Street for months. Now she, her husband and her son are looking for an apartment because they were kicked out of the Halsted Street shelter and placed in another apartment an hour and a half away.
Rosa’s son is 5 and goes to school nearby.
In January, Mayor Brandon Johnson said, “We want to give every person and family who has come to our city enough time to process their work permits, find housing and start a new life in our great city.”
However, migrants like Rosa are still waiting for a work permit.
“When we have a mayor who talks about investing in people when they’re actually evicting people, that’s just not right,” Ald said. Andre Vasquez (40th), chairman of the City Council Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “The part that’s puzzling to me is that the governor, the mayor and the chairman of the Cook County Board had an agreement for 15,000 beds for the entire year — or at least even up until the DNC.”
On Thursday, the city said about 6,700 migrants were living in city or state shelters. Volunteers like Maria Perez ensure that those still in shelters know what to do the next time they are deported.
“This is your only option,” Perez said. “They don’t have any other options, you know, I mean, otherwise they’re going to be put out on the streets.”
Other cities also enforce migrant shelter policies –Denver and New York started doing this before Chicago did. In Chicagoafter postpone the deportation deadline a few timesmigrants now receive notices.
Any new person entering the shelter system must also be given 60 days’ notice, with some exceptions.
