As new migrants continue to arrive in Chicago from Texas, the city is looking at a college campus in the Dunning neighborhood as a possible temporary shelter.
“They want to take them [migrants] out of the police stations and put them at Wright College and use it as a respite center for two months,” said Ald. Nicholas Sposato, who serves the city's 38th Ward.
Sposato said the city wants to house 400 migrants at the site in his ward, and residents will get a chance to weigh in at a community meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at at 4300 N. Narragansett Ave.
“If my community doesn’t have a problem, I support it,” he said. “The plus to this is getting them out of the police stations and getting these people into a temporary place and getting them into a permanent place.”
A police source told NBC 5 that the 12th District police station on the city's Near West Side was already at full capacity as of Thursday morning, housing nearly 100 migrants.
A department memo went out, saying the station can't take an additional people citing a lack of space, deteriorating sanitary conditions and a lack of sufficient toilet facilitations.
NBC 5 learned that there were 734 migrants sleeping on the floors of 22 police stations.
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“I’m hoping they find a place for these migrants,” said Sposato. “I think we’re going to be overwhelmed with them. I don’t know if we can find enough places.”
Pastor Tom Terrell said his congregation at Christ Lutheran Church in Albany Park is currently helping five migrant families.
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“It’s hard we just emptied out the police station yesterday,” he said on Friday. “The last families came we thought they would get a little breather, now 33 people are there today.”
Since opening their doors to help less than two weeks ago, Terrell said donations have been pouring in - from clothing to toiletries.
“I really hope more churches, more faith communities will say - we have buildings, we have spaces, we can provide some temporary safe housing for people really in this time of duress,” he said.
