City will end shelters designated for newly arrived immigrants this year, Mayor Brandon Johnson announces

The city will end designated shelters for newly arrived asylum-seekers by the end of this year, part of the city’s anticipated plan to merge its shelter systems, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced Monday at a news conference.

The transition of the two shelter systems — one for newly arrived immigrants and another for unhoused people in Chicago — will start this week with changes that include offering first-time placement in a migrant shelter only to those who have been in the United States less than 30 days.

The merger into the One System Initiative comes two years after former Mayor Lori Lightfoot set up temporary shelters to house newly arrived migrants that were sent to Chicago on buses and planes by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican aiming to send immigrants to cities led by Democrats.

An estimated 3,800 beds designated for immigrants — funded by the city and state — will be added to the existing 3,000 beds for anyone experiencing homelessness in Chicago. That number is far less than the 14,175 beds a group of community advocates and officials had recommended the city keep for the One System Initiative.

It is also less than the city’s own estimate of 11,000 shelter beds it needs to combat homelessness. An estimated 18,836 people are experiencing homelessness in Chicago this year, according to the city’s annual tally.

“Could this lead to people on the street? Look, I'll be remiss if I did not acknowledge the financial straits that we are experiencing right now,” Johnson said, pointing to other budget needs in Chicago Public Schools and across city departments. “I don't want to see anyone lose, right. But the harsh reality is that we can do what we can afford. We've been stretched to the limits.”

Ald. Andre Vasquez, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the shelter system should have served both asylum-seekers and longstanding homeless residents together from the start.

He praised the city moving to the unified system and winding down contracts with controversial, costly staffing companies, Vasquez said he’s worried more residents will end up on the streets as the consolidated system will go into effect during the winter in Chicago.

“That is concerning, because we're going to head into winter fairly soon,” Vasquez said. “...not having 1,000 people out on the street as you’re heading into the winter.”

As of Monday, there were 4,996 newly arrived immigrants seeking refuge at 13 shelters run by the city and state, according to the city’s Department of Family and Support Services. As part of the transition, the city will end extensions for people awaiting public benefits, and the landing zone — a designated area for newly arrived immigrants — will close by Dec. 31.

The city will also phase out a controversial contract with Favorite Healthcare Staffing — a Kansas City-based company that has run many of the city’s migrant shelters — and move toward working with community organizations to staff shelters, said Brandie Knazze, commissioner for the city’s department of family and support services.

The unified system will not have a 60-day limit, and anyone needing refuge will have to call 311 to be placed in a shelter, Knazze said. Some details, such as the locations of the remaining shelters, weren’t yet available.

Although officials plan to close the landing zone, an access point — which was recommended by community groups — is in the works, said Sendy Soto, the city’s chief homelessness officer.

“In terms of the hours of operation, we are talking to the state in relation to what that’s going to cost us, and who can service the access point 24 hours,” Soto said.

While the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness says it supports a unified shelter system, it’s concerned the timing of the transition could result in thousands of newly arrived immigrants ending up on the street, said Sam Paler-Ponce, the coalition’s associate director of city policy.

“The transition also underscores the urgent need for more robust funding for permanent housing and services,” he said. “Shelters are an important emergency response, but they don’t offer the long-term stability that housing provides or rental assistance provides.”

The coalition called on the state to expedite benefits for those who could soon face an eviction from a city-run shelter, and they are also concerned about Chicago Public Schools students who may be disrupted by the changes in the middle of the school year, Paler-Ponce said.

They are also concerned that 311 will not be equipped to handle a potential spike in calls once the systems are unified in January, Paler-Ponce said.

“There’s a huge shelter bed demand already,” Paler-Ponce said. “And the pace at which we are going, we have concerns that the legacy system will not be ready to meet those demands.”

Johnson did not detail if more funds would be allocated to 311, saying it will be part of the City Council’s budget discussions.

Jose Miguel Muñoz, executive director of La Casa Norte, was part of a group that issued recommendations for how the city could merge the two shelter systems, and he said it's a good thing more beds will be added.

“The fact that historically we’ve only had 3,000 beds in the city of Chicago, and now we are looking at adding another 3,800 beds permanently to that,” Muñoz said. “It’s a big win. Do we need more? I would always advocate for more beds.”

During Monday’s news conference, Johnson said the city could only afford a certain amount of beds and made no promises to increase the number in the future.

Johnson pointed a finger back at “scare tactics” of opponents who defeated the Bring Chicago Home referendum in March. The tax increase on the sale of high-end properties was expected to generate $100 million in revenue annually to go toward homelessness prevention.

“I think the part about it that's most frustrating … is that if we would have passed Bring Chicago Home, if the interests of corporations who have demonstrated that they are stingy and greedy — that had they just allowed for less than 3% to pay a small, incremental increase on the transferring of property … we would have a system right now with 4,200 more beds,” Johnson said.

Monday’s announcement comes a little over a week before Johnson plans to reveal his proposed 2025 budget. He must close both a $223 million end-of-year-deficit and lay out how he’ll balance an estimated $982.4 million budget gap for next year.

In Johnson’s budget forecast laid out in August, budget officials previously said they planned to allocate $150 million to aiding the city’s migrants — the same amount the city initially included in the 2024 budget, which proved to be insufficient to carry the city through the year.

Johnson said Monday that figure is now outdated but declined to reveal how much funding the city will be allocating to supporting asylum-seekers next year.