Collaboration must have a different meaning
Why are residents consulted about moving migrants into their neighborhoods
According to the dictionary, collaboration is “the situation of two or more people working together to create or achieve the same thing.” It is also the word that is favored by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Johnson attended a news conference this week with Gov. JB Pritzer and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin to discuss the migrant crisis and appeal to Democratic President Joe Biden for more federal dollars to assist in housing and feeding the 13,000 migrants already here, with more on the way.
The mayor noted recently that Chicago can’t afford to take in more migrants. Surely, he understands those words mean nothing to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who continues to bus and airlift folks from the border to Chicago.
The call for collaboration with the Feds screams irony, as collaboration is far from what some South Side neighborhoods have received from city hall. Maybe the word has a different meaning for Team Johnson.
Last week, Fifth Ward Alderperson Desmon Yancy faced a vociferous crowd voicing their views on the city’s plan to move 300 migrants into the former Lake Shore Hotel - 4900 block of Du Sable Lake Shore Drive.
Yancy explained to a hall full of South Shore and Kenwood neighborhood residents that city officials had only given him a week’s notice about locating the asylum-seekers at the hotel. He added that as soon as he got word, he put things in motion to alert local residents. Like Johnson, Yancy is serving his first term.
Based on the overwhelming negative reaction of the audience, if collaboration were in play, it would result in the city finding another location for the new arrivals from South and Central America. About 100 migrants were already housed at the hotel. The City plans to bump the number to 300
Less than five miles away in Woodlawn, Alderperson Jeanette Taylor and residents of the 20th Ward, has made known for months their unhappiness with the city’s decision to put hundreds of asylum-seekers in the former Wadsworth Elementary School on South Ellis. Residents and Taylor maintain they were not given a heads-up that the school would be transfomed into a shelter. Reports from some neighbors and news media identify the school and nearby grounds as a site for drug sales and use, as well as other illicit behaviors.
This week the Chicago Sun-Times reported that hundreds of migrants have been housed in a closed off section of O’Hare International Airport-an area that has no showers, inadequate number of beds, no school facilities, and sub-standard food. The fact that the number of migrants are at four times the plan capacity is another reflection of the lack of a comprehesive plan for the new arrivals.
More outreach and new strategies are necessary
Even if President Biden grants the request of Pritzer, Durbin and Johnson typical bureaucracy will prevent the dollars arriving immediately or close to it. Johnson reportedly has been turned down by some west suburban mayors in his request to house some migrants in facilities in those communities. There are several shuttered malls in the South Suburbs the city might discuss with the elected officials in those communities to temporarily convert them to shelters for asylum-seekers. Malls have equipment for cooking as well as restrooms and stores could be converted to dorm-like facilities.
Re-negotiate the Bally’s contract
The City of Chicago hopes to haul in approximately $55 million in taxes from Bally’s temporary casino at the former Medinah Temple. Gambling is set to start there within two weeks. It would make sense for Chicago to find a “sweetner” to add to the existing contract and get an immediate cash infusion of a few million dollars.
If Biden decides to loosen the purse strings and send federal dollars this way, and the City struck a deal with Bally’s Chicago would be that much further ahead The reality is that every million dollars in migrant care moves away from the City having that money for its operating expenses. Without help and creative strategies, Johnson may be looking at breaking his unbreakable campaign promise of not raising property tax.