Southwest Side Chicago alderman, state rep said city extended use of migrant shelter without notice
A battle is brewing over a migrant shelter on Chicago's Southwest Side.
The State of Illinois opened the shelter and was paying for it, with plans to close the shelter on June 1. But now, those plans have apparently changed.
While the sign on the outside of the building at 7353 S. Cicero Ave. still says Holiday Inn, the hotel has operated as a migrant shelter since last July. The alderman and state representative for the area expected that the contract for the shelter would end in June — and they are upset now to learn that the state is transferring the shelter to the city without any notification.
"They will be ending their use of this — the state," said Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th). "Now, the city wants to come in a not-for-profit to put a city-ran shelter here."
Curtis sent a letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson voicing his opposition to extending the contract to use the newly renovated hotel in his ward as a shelter without any notification.
Letter on Southwest Side migrant shelter by Adam Harrington on Scribd
"Something didn't happen, and we're talking about — I asked about zoning," Curtis said. "They told me they didn't need the zoning — they're OK with zoning. I don't understand that, when everyone else has to go through the Zoning Board of Appeals."
Curtis said he found out about the city taking over the shelter from the state last week — specifically at 8 p.m. this past Friday night — and said nothing has come before the City Council or the community.
"It says that either the mayor don't want to work me, or they're trying to hide something," Curtis said of the timing of when he found out.
The state opened the 900-bed shelter on busy Cicero Avenue just weeks before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last summer. The temporary state-run shelter was to close June 1, 2025.
"Here's the big question — who's going to pay for it?" said Illinois state Rep. Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar (D-Chicago). "Because if it's going from the state to the city, does that mean Mayor Johnson has found money to support this shelter?"
Guerrero-Cuellar said the city has not been transparent about what is staying or coming in June.
"We don't have the answers. Nobody has provided the answers," she said. "Is this going to continue as a migrant shelter? Is it all homeless? Is it just males, families? What are we looking at here?"
Curtis and Guerrero-Cuellar worry extending the use of the shelter without public input is not the way to go.
"The mayor needs to answer to these folks," Guerrero-Cuellar said. "If you already agreed, that means you must know the answer. You're just not sharing them."
"Someone is not telling us the whole story," added Curtis.
CBS News Chicago did reach out to the Mayor's office to get clarifications about the shelter's future in the next two weeks. There had yet to be a response as of Monday night.
