Mayor Brandon Johnson suspended the 60-day shelter limit for migrants for the third time since November this week, saying in a news conference that the city’s plan for temporary emergency shelter “was never meant as a long-term housing solution.”
Beatriz Ponce de León
Ald. Julia Ramirez (12th Ward) said Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office informed her late Friday that work would begin Monday on the base camp over her objections and after the discovery of “toxic metals” on the site.
The new policy could mean more than 3,000 people will lose their beds in city shelters by early February, with the rest forced out by April.
Approximately 1,500 men, women and children are sleeping in thin tents outside police stations across the city, officials said.
Many furious residents urged Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration to scrap the proposal, while others vowed to protect and care for Chicago’s newest residents.
Ald. Pat Dowell called on Mayor Brandon Johnson to center the need of Black Chicagoans and warned that every bus that arrives “is eating away at the goodwill of the people of the city of Chicago.”
Hundreds of migrant men, women and children continue to sleep on police station floors, despite efforts to move them into shelters.
