Chicago eliminates migrant-only shelters, 'landing zone'

Chicago is shutting down its migrant-only shelter system and merging it with the city’s traditional homeless shelter system.

The Windy City is also closing its "landing zone" for migrants where newly arrived migrants get shelter placements and other resources. The landing zone will close at the end of 2024 and is now only open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., as opposed to also being open overnight. 

The moves come as the number of migrants arriving in the Windy City continues to drop. At its peak in late-December, the city was housing about 14,900 migrants, but that has fallen to around 5,000, per reports. 

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The overhaul will see 3,800 beds added to the city’s current homeless services system of 3,000 legacy beds in a new strategy being labeled as the One System Initiative (OSI). The new strategy aims to streamline operations and reduce the high cost of operating the migrant shelters, which have stretched the city’s budget. 

"We are shifting to a more cost-effective, equitable, and strategic approach that addresses homelessness for all who need support in the City of Chicago," Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Monday in a press release announcing the plan. "This transition is in line with the sharp decline in migration to Chicago and our current budget realities." 

The press release states that the OSI is a "unified sheltering system to serve all Chicagoans" which will take effect by the new year.

Johnson took a swipe at Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who began busing thousands of migrants to the Windy City in 2022 because of its sanctuary city status as Texas struggled to cater to an unprecedented surge of migrants arriving in the Lone Star state under the Biden-Harris administration. 

"We fought back and showed the world just how welcoming we can be," Johnson said at a press briefing, per WTTW.

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"The efforts at the Texas border by Republican Governor Greg Abbott were meant to destabilize welcoming cities like Chicago, but the city responded with community care in welcoming nearly 50,000 new arrivals," the press release states. "The Johnson Administration is proud of the City agencies, community partners and government entities who successfully responded to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis."

Chicago has received more than 50,000 migrants throughout the current crisis, many of them families, according to CBS.

With the city still housing nearly 5,000 people in its migrant shelters, concerns are being raised that there will not be enough beds for migrants once the new system is in place and the sharp Chicago winter bites. But migrants who get into a homeless shelter will no longer face evictions.

Johnson had attempted to raise $100 million by hiking taxes on properties worth more than $1 million in his "Bring Chicago Home" ballot measure, which ultimately failed. 

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The crisis has so far cost Chicago taxpayers nearly $200 million since it began and the city is facing a $982.4 million shortfall in 2025, according to WTTW.

"Instead, we can only encumber what our budget allows," Johnson said, per WTTV. "But imagine the increase in our capacity if 'Bring Chicago Home' had passed."

"Could this lead to people on the street? Look, I’ll be remiss if I did not acknowledge the financial straits that we are experiencing right now and the impact that that’s going to have on this mission," Johnson said.