Mayors confront migrant housing issues as winter approaches
- Chicago and New York City are grappling with migrant housing shortages
- Mayors in both cities say have recently seen declining job approval ratings
- Advocates are calling for federal assistance as winter weather encroaches
Migrants camp outside a hotel where they had previously been housed, as they resist efforts by the city to relocate them to a Brooklyn facility for asylum seekers, in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood of New York on January 31, 2023. – The Brooklyn facility is the city’s fifth relief center amid a continued influx of asylum seekers, according to local media. (Photo by Ed JONES / AFP) (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)
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(NewsNation) — Pressure is mounting in areas like New York City and Chicago as asylum-seekers disembark buses from the southern border and struggle to secure shelter for the winter months.
More than 25,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago and 116,000 in New York City since Aug. 21, 2022, and plans to house the asylum seekers have hit logistic and financial setbacks.
It’s not limited to the two cities. In Denver, migrants fear they’ll have to live in tents after shelters closed.
Smaller towns like Carbondale, Colorado — about three hours west of Denver — have even fewer resources to handle large groups of migrants looking for shelter. Carbondale city leaders are pleading with state officials for funding to help shelter the 125 migrants who made it to the small mountain town as winter weather arrives.
In New York City, Democratic Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly asked the federal government for assistance and recently announced across-the-board budget cuts. Migrants in Chicago have spent their nights on police station floors and a make-shift shelter at O’Hare International Airport.
Encroaching winter weather has exposed the lack of adequate shelters in both cities, spurring humanitarian and safety concerns.
“We’ve seen it happen in the past where people have ended up dying from the cold and we’ve already had two or three code blues in the city of New York, which means that there’s a very aggressive push to get people into shelter and off the streets,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.
New York City has taken several measures to ease the pressure on shelters including a “reticketing center” in Manhattan, where asylum-seekers can obtain tickets to another destination after they’ve been discharged from the city’s shelter program.
Adams also announced in October he would limit shelter stays for asylum seekers with children to 60 days. He made a similar call in September when he limited adult migrants’ shelter stays to 30 days.
However, while the restrictions are intended to relieve pressure at local shelters, some migrant families say they’re left scrambling for housing.
“They should extend the time, or give me papers, and that way I can find a steady job,” a Colombian migrant named Maurico told NewsNation’s local affiliate PIX11. “The problem that I have right now is if we want to rent something, they’re asking for a lot of paperwork. And we don’t have the papers to do it.”
Mauricio had been staying at a family shelter with his wife and two young children for five months when they learned of the 60-day limit.
“I don’t have any place to go with my family,” he told the New York outlet in October.
In Chicago, Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged to move forward with a plan to move as many as 2,000 asylum seekers into “winterized base camps.”
However, fellow Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker’s office recently halted plans for a migrant base camp in Chicago’s Brighton Park, citing an environmental agency’s concerns about elevated levels of mercury, lead and arsenic.
As temperatures dropped, so have the mayors’ approval ratings. About 28% of New York voters approve of the way Adams is handling his job, compared to 58% who disapprove, according to a poll Quinnipiac University released last week.
Johnson also received a 28% approval rating in a poll that the Illinois Policy Institute conducted in late October.
Adams said Tuesday he respects New Yorkers’ anger.
“People don’t understand the full scope of this, how we’re creatures of the state and we’re creatures of the federal government,” he said during a news conference. “I don’t have deportation powers. I don’t have powers to turn buses around. I don’t have the power to say we’re not going to give you some form of housing.”
Andre Gordillo, director of New Life Centers’ Southwest Border Arrivals Program, helps oversee a team of people who move migrants out of shelters and into homes. His message for new hires is always the same: “Be willing to roll with the punches, because things change almost every week.”
“There’s 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants in America that are kind of living in a no man’s land… and they still pay taxes,” Gordillo said. “Not only to help our new neighbors but to help so many that have lived here for 30, 40 years — there needs to be a complete overhaul.”
Gordillo and Awawdeh in New York both advocate for expansions of existing rental assistance programs, changes to shelter restrictions and — above all — federal assistance.
“We continue to see the federal government not take action and use their communities as a political football,” Awawdeh said. “Enough is enough. We need them to stop scapegoating immigrant communities and actually deliver real solutions that support people.”