After announcing last week plans to open a new respite center for the city’s arriving migrants at the Gage Park field house, Ald. Raymond López, 15th, met with community members Tuesday evening to share details of his proposal and next steps.
About 75 people gathered at St. Clare of Montefalco Catholic Chapel in Gage Park around 6 p.m. to hear Lopez’s plans and voice their support or concerns about turning the Chicago Park District’s field house in Gage Park into a temporary, safe place for migrants.
Lopez was joined by representatives from the Park District, the city’s Office of Emergency Management, the Department of Family and Support Services and more. Ald. Jeylu Gutierrez, 14th, was also in the audience. Her ward covers the majority of Gage Park including where the field house is.
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Respite centers are different from traditional shelters because they are transition locations for new arrivals who are awaiting placement in one of the city’s 11 active shelters for migrants.
The Gage Park respite center could see migrants moving in as early as Friday, city representatives said Tuesday, the same day four more buses from Texas arrived with over 160 people. They join more than 11,000 who have been bused to Chicago since August.
The new respite center could hold up to 250 people and would have the same resources, services and security as other city shelters. The center would be only for single adults, not families with children, and primarily be filled by the more than 150 people sleeping on police station floors across the city.
The Gage Park field house was identified by the city as a space that meets health, safety and capacity requirements needed to relieve some of the migrant crisis in Chicago.
Responses to the Gage Park respite center Tuesday were mixed. Most people expressed issues with using the field house to shelter migrants because of security worries in the neighborhood or prior expected uses of the field house this summer, but some people said migrant housing should be a priority for everyone.
Linda Coronado, 75, said she was born and raised in the area by the field house and said she attended the meeting Tuesday to hear what her fellow community members have to say. She said people in her community opposed to helping migrants and being “so unwelcoming is unnerving.”
“We are a loving people,” she said. “Most of us, especially in this area, are immigrants, whether it be Irish immigrants, Polish immigrants, Latino immigrants. We’re all immigrants essentially, and so I think what we need to realize is that the migrants have something to contribute. The children going to our schools, the adults working, I’d like to see them being acquainted with our city.”