Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks to the news media on June 12, 2024. (WTTW News)

Five months after the Chicago City Council agreed to spend an additional $70 million to house, feed and care for migrants, city officials don’t expect to need that money after all.

Mayor Brandon Johnson burned a significant amount of political capital to convince the City Council in April to appropriate the money, as officials braced for a renewed surge of migrants from the southern border on buses paid for by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott timed to coincide with August’s Democratic National Convention.

Eventually, the City Council voted 30-18 to dip into the city’s 2022 budget surplus after a fractious meeting where the racial fault lines dividing Chicago were once again on display.

Several Black alderpeople said it was deeply painful to see the city spend hundreds of millions of dollars to care for the newest Chicagoans, many of them Latino, while they have lived in neighborhoods that have suffered from disinvestment for decades — with no end in sight. Others said Chicago has an obligation to care for the thousands of men, women and children living in the city’s shelters.

Johnson supported the additional funding reluctantly, pointedly declining to join Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle when they in March announced an agreement to set aside an additional $250 million to care for the migrants through the end of 2024.

But the surge that many officials said was certain to hit the city never materialized, and the city expects to spend less than $141 million to care for the migrants, who are in the country legally after requesting asylum and receiving permission to remain in the U.S. while their cases are resolved.

That is approximately $9 million less than the $150 million City Council earmarked to care for the migrants a year ago when it approved the city’s 2024 budget. At the time, Johnson said he did not think that would be enough to care for the migrants for an entire year but hoped it would convince state, county and federal officials to send additional aid to the city.

The city expects to save at least an additional $16 million by closing three shelters by the end of October. The city paid $8 million per month to operate those shelters, according to data provided to WTTW News by the city’s budget office.

Those savings are on top of the revised estimate included in the city’s year-end projections released Aug. 29, officials said. Before the closure of the three shelters was announced on Sept. 10, the city expected to spend $157 million to care for migrants by the end of the year.

Those savings were the result of fewer than expected migrants living in city facilities, and additional funds from the state and federal governments, officials said.

That $157 million projection was used to calculate the $222.9 million deficit Chicago officials must fill by the end of the year, officials said. That means the closure of the three shelters will likely reduce that gap by approximately 7%, which is not enough to materially change the city’s dire financial situation.

Johnson is expected to propose a detailed plan to close both the shortfall in the 2024 budget and the projected $982.4 million gap the city is facing in 2025.

The city’s initial plan called for Chicago to set aside $150 million next year to care for migrants, but that may change given the reduced number of migrants making their way to the city.

There are fewer than 5,400 people living in 17 facilities as of Sept. 17, a 2.5% drop in the past month, according to city data.

In all, 48,283 migrants have made their way to Chicago, an increase of 3.5% in the past month, according to city data.

A new policy implemented by President Joe Biden reduced the number of migrants crossing the border without permission by nearly 50%, reaching near-record lows, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Even as the city’s efforts to care for the migrants who made their way to Chicago from the southern border enters a new phase, no policy changes have been announced.

Johnson’s 60-day limit on shelter stays for most migrants remains in effect.

Approximately 72% of the more than 2,300 migrants evicted from city shelters since March had nowhere else to go, and continue to live in city facilities, according to city data.

All migrants evicted from a city shelter can return to the designated “landing zone” for buses from Texas at Polk and Des Plaines streets in the West Loop and reapply for shelter.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]