Nearly two hours elapsed before aldermen broached the subject of conditions at city shelters for migrants at a hearing called Tuesday specifically for that purpose.
Instead, after Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Monday announcement that he would not move to evict thousands of shelter residents until March, questions at the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights meeting were relatively tame and largely centered on the slow pace of federal authorities granting migrants the right to seek work.
The bureaucratic focus of aldermen’s testimony belied the heated rhetoric and protests that have characterized discussions of the migrant crisis for months across Chicago, and the ongoing controversy about the conditions in which migrants are living in shelters.
City officials did give the first public glimpse into the grievance system available for residents and staff to use for shelter problems. On average over the past three months, residents have filed 37 grievances per week. In January, an average of 55 resident grievances were filed per week. . City officials did not detail what grievances focused on.
The hearing was called after reports emerged of migrants sleeping upright on buses and digging food out of trash at the city’s landing zone, as well as unsanitary conditions at one of the city’s 28 shelters in Pilsen where a 5-year-old died in December.
Health care specialists have also questioned both the conditions and coordination of care in the warehouse where that child, Jean Carlos Martinez Rivero, became sick, and across the city’s entire shelter system.
“We have a pretty rigorous grievance process,” Beatriz Ponce de León, Johnson’s deputy mayor of immigrant, migrant and refugee rights, told reporters after the hearing concluded. She noted that a final medical examiner’s report for Martinez Rivero is not yet available and that there’s “no evidence” that he “died as a result in being in that shelter.”
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Ponce de León echoed the refrain from city officials about the unprecedented effort it took to stand up emergency housing in a matter of months and the complexities of delivering care — especially at large shelters like the one in Pilsen — during the hearing.
“It really is a huge system. If you think about 28 shelters, basically 15,000 residents … having the oversight and the systems in place has taken some time,” she said. “Focusing on quality and safety is one of our top priorities.”
Brandie Knazze, commissioner of the city’s Department of Family and Support Services, said the Halsted Shelter — where residents complained of cold and where a nearby alderwoman said she had heard complaints about sanitation, pests and access to showers — had seen several improvements.
The shelter is being monitored for temperatures and exits have a heated vestibule to prevent cold from seeping in, Knazze said. Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors have been installed, bathrooms are “deep cleaned” three times a day and laundry is provided on-site.
So far, more than 13,000 incident reports have been filed by shelter staff members across the city, according to the presentation from Johnson administration officials, of those that are closed, 1,905 involved “health and wellness.”
In all, 12,371 reports have been closed; 4,715 involved curfew violations, 1,400 involved a resident’s violation of a code of conduct, and 818 concerned unattended children, according to the presentation, while 795 incident reports are open.
Aldermen have limited access to the shelters themselves, and must give 48 hours’ notice before a visit. The press is also barred from entering shelters or the landing zone.
“We’re always gonna have concerns about what the treatment is about the folks at the landing zone and the shelter. I think baseline, we’re getting limited information on what that looks like,” committee chair Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, said.
Tuesday’s hearing was the start an attempt to get a grip on data, though he said those efforts would be helped if residents had better services around language access.
“What I felt good about is the fact that we now do have some metrics around what the grievances look like,” Vasquez said. “Now, I want to track that over time because it seemed like a big number.”
Resident grievances about staffers, facilities or services can be filed anonymously online by scanning a QR code on flyers throughout shelters. The city’s goal, according to the administration presentation, is to review submitted grievances within three to seven days.
The city’s resident grievance team will either reach out to speak with the resident if they provided personal information to talk about their submission or gather information on their own via interviews or incident reports. They then submit recommendations to the relevant city departments, and a resolution is determined with DFSS officials, the shelter staff or the city’s Department of Fleet and Facilities Management.
The city’s main shelter contractor, Favorite Staffing, however, was absent. Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, said she was troubled that the city did not have the ability to directly discipline contractors for potential violations. Vasquez said he hoped to have a hearing with GardaWorld, Favorite Staffing and Catholic Charities in the near future.
The costs of shelter staffing from contractors like Favorite Staffing have contributed to daily migrant response costs of $1.5 million each day, Johnson noted at a City Hall news conference Monday, putting Chicago on track to tap out the $150 million dedicated to migrant response in April.
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When asked at an unrelated event Tuesday how the state will address the issue after the money runs dry, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state will continue “serving the needs of those who are in this humanitarian crisis.”
“We’re gonna have to continue to manage the influx of migrants to the city,” Pritzker said. “The city is going to have to be right there at the table, as they are now.”