Chicago closes migrant shelter at former Wadsworth Elementary School in Woodlawn
CHICAGO (CBS) -- City officials have closed a migrant shelter in the Woodlawn neighborhood as the number of asylum seekers living in city shelters continues to decline.
Monday morning, city officials confirmed the shelter at the former Wadsworth Elementary School at 6420 S. University Av. had been "decompressed," and all of the migrants living there had been transferred to other city shelters.
"As the mission evolves, the City will continue to work with our State and County partners to look at all options to provide temporary emergency shelter for this mission," a city spokesperson said in an email.
Sources said, while all of the migrants had been moved out of the Wadsworth shelter, all the infrastructure inside would remain in place to allow the building to be used as a backup shelter again this summer, in case there is a surge in the number of migrants sent to Chicago from Texas ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Sources said the city plans to permanently close the Wadsworth shelter in October.
Ever since the DNC was scheduled to be held in Chicago, city officials have predicted that officials in Texas will ramp up efforts to send migrants to Chicago in the weeks leading up to the convention. More than 41,000 migrants have arrived in the city since August 2022, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending asylum seekers to Chicago and other sanctuary cities to protest President Joe Biden's immigration policies, and hurt his chances of winning re-election in 2024.
Chicago has seen a steady decline in the number of migrants living in temporary shelters in 2024, with the city's shelter population cut nearly in half since January, allowing city officials to close several shelters.
As of Monday morning, 7,683 migrants were living in 16 active shelters, with more than 100 others awaiting shelter placement. At the start of the year, 14,717 migrants were staying in 27 city shelters, with another 578 awaiting shelter placement.
Since the start of the year, the city has closed shelters that had been set up at five Chicago Park District sites, allowing those park facilities to reopen to the public for the summer. The city also has closed several other shelters that had been operating at hotels, churches, and other sites.
The Wadsworth shelter opened in January 2023 under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot despite objections from some Woodlawn community members.
At the time, the city said up to 250 migrants could stay there for up to two years, but according to city data, as of May 3, a total of 503 migrants were staying there.
The city spent weeks denying they planned to use the former Wadsworth school as a migrant shelter in the fall of 2022, despite obvious evidence of construction work on site and documents that suggested otherwise. It wasn't until December 2022 that the city confirmed the school building would be turned into a shelter.
Before the shelter opened. Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) said she was not told the Lightfoot administration was planning a migrant shelter at Wadsworth until plans were already in the works, or she would have suggested other parts of her ward that are home to Latinx organizations and churches, rather than Woodlawn, where most residents are Black and don't speak Spanish.
Since it opened, many people in the Woodlawn community have vented frustration and anger with how the shelter was being run.
At a community meeting last summer, neighbors complained of loitering, late-night partying, littering, prostitution, and fights at the shelter. Many neighbors said the shelter was making them feel unsafe in their own neighborhood.
At one point, police had to intervene, breaking up a quarrel during public comments.
"It absolutely is a problem," Taylor said at the meeting.
All the city officials who attended the meeting promised they are working on solutions to make the area around the shelter better for the neighborhood – and consequences for those who are found to be breaking the rules or the law.
The closure comes after a neighborhood group last week abruptly canceled plans to announce a lawsuit that would have sought to force the city to close the Wadsworth shelter.
