A winter snow storm has hit Chicago, amping up pressure on officials to find housing for recently arrived migrants.
Of the more than 30,000 migrants that have been sent to Chicago from the southern border, more than 200 were living at the city’s landing zone in the West Loop as of Thursday — using CTA buses as temporary shelters.
Volunteers say they are now scrambling to find ways to get migrants the supplies they need.
Veronica Saldana, a volunteer with the Chicago Police Station Response Team, has been to the landing zone to deliver supplies to new arrivals but has been met with resistance from those organizing the location. She says the warming buses have been full of migrants going without enough food or clothes and little medical attention.
“It’s night and day really, because at least at the police stations, we had systems in place where volunteers were there or on call to be ready to receive them and bring them all of their basic necessities,” she said. “Screen them, you know, if they needed medical attention, we’d make sure to get that for them.”
Ald. Jason Ervin (28th Ward) said a lack of resources and coordination is leading to longer stays at a place meant for drop offs and processing.
“Coordination would look like communication with outside entities working in regards to this,” said Ervin, whose ward includes the landing zone site. “There’s some entities that are paid to work through this but there are some people that are out of the kindness of their heart, volunteering for this. We want to harness all of the resources because at the end of the day, we want to help make this experience as positive as possible.”
He has also continuously called for federal support in order to care for new arrivals.
Melissa Faccini Deming is the founder of Seamos Amigos and volunteers with the Chicago Police Station Response Team to help support migrants. She says she is frustrated with the lack of communication from the Office of Emergency Management and Communication.
“I think a lot of people get worried about liability and safety,” she said. “And they think that if we get too close, we’re gonna see things that we shouldn’t see. The reality is we are already close. They don’t have to tell us where the gaps are. We know them. So it’s best to just partner with us.”
Despite this, Demming, Saldana and many other volunteers are finding ways to organize their efforts.
“If they just told us, ‘look, there’s a new arrival,’ we would be there with a welcome kit just like we did at the stations,” Deming said. “We just need to be told more.”
