Overcrowding, cold food and uncertain futures a way of life for migrants in Chicago’s shelters
CHICAGO -- Across the street from the 1st District police station, Hildemaro Rafael Peña Gonzalez, 23, from Venezuela, fed cereal out of a plastic takeout container to his pregnant wife Racnia del Carmen León Mendoza, 19, and rubbed her swollen belly. The couple was moved from the station to a shelter in a hotel downtown about 10 days ago, but came back to the small basketball cancha, or court, to sit on a bench in the shade.
“People have been nice (downtown),” said Gonzalez in Spanish, “But it’s nicer here.”
It’s a sentiment shared by many. Though migrants from shelters across the city told the Tribune that sleeping in a shelter bed or on an air mattress is better than on the ground in police stations, the support and care they’re receiving appears, in most cases, to be worse.
As city leaders continue to struggle to handle the inflow, the Tribune spoke to dozens of migrants from nine shelters who said that they are crowded in hotel rooms or sleeping on the ground, eating cold and unappetizing meals and unsure of where to find resources. They miss the support they found at police stations where countless Chicagoans have stepped up to help, assisting with basic needs such as food and clothes, and making them feel welcome.
The condition of the city’s 12 shelters cannot be assessed fully because the city has repeatedly denied a request from the Tribune and others for access in the past nine months on over 10,000 new arrivals who have come to Chicago since August, and Chicago aldermen recently .
