Immigrant rights activists warned of a looming homeless crisis next year and urged Mayor Brandon Johnson and the City Council at a Thursday news conference to maintain funding for migrant and homelessness services in next year’s budget by increasing taxes on corporations.
Johnson proposed Wednesday a $17.3 billion budget for next year, which includes the largest property tax hike in nearly a decade to help close a more than $980 million budget shortfall. The proposal seeks to cut a $150 million allocation for migrant services, as the city downsizes its bed availability and shifts to one system for all homeless Chicagoans.
Veronica Castro, the deputy director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, believes that “insufficient investments” for programs that support homeless individuals in the budget, coupled with shutting dedicated migrant shelters, will lead to an increase in street homelessness in the city that is “unacceptable.”
“Many of the individuals and families currently in shelters still need support on a path to self-sufficiency, and even though buses have stopped, people still keep coming,” she said. “With both the city and state pulling back on supporting this mission, the full burden of this work will fall on our communities. That ain’t right. We’re already stretched to the brink.”
To raise more money, activists suggested the city use “progressive revenue options” such as placing higher taxes on large corporations headquartered in Chicago or reinstituting the so-called head tax, which allowed the city to charge large businesses a per-employee fee until it was eliminated in 2014.
They also encouraged the city to do a “deeper analysis” of tax increment financing dollars in areas such as Lincoln Yards, or to implement something like Boston’s “payment in lieu of tax program,” which asks large institutions such as hospitals or colleges with tax-exempt property to make voluntary payments.
“When we hear that tough choices need to be made, it is only tough if you are choosing to value rich corporations over everyday people that local government has both the ability and the responsibility to care for,” said Rose Shapiro, the community development manager at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs.
Under the new system set to begin in January, the city will have 6,800 beds for homeless people, regardless of whether they’re migrants, an increase from the 3,000 beds in the city’s current homeless shelter system. However, since there are currently about 5,000 migrants living in the asylum-seeker shelter system, and the 3,000 beds are usually 97% to 98% full, there may not be room for every migrant or homeless person in the unified system.
Brandie Knazze, the commissioner of the Department of Family and Support Services, told the Tribune last week that with the help of rental assistance and resettlement resources available at shelters, the city is capable of meeting this challenge. The budget also allocates $40 million to expand the unified shelter system and $29 million for rapid rehousing, a program that helps homeless individuals secure permanent housing.
The flow of asylum-seekers entering the U.S. has also dropped substantially after an executive order from President Joe Biden.
Castro, though, said she worries migrants may have trouble accessing shelter beds next year. She called the budget a “moral document,” saying the city and state need to fund more affordable housing and expand rental assistance.
“The timing of the Chicago wind-down is troubling, and the need for more investment in permanent solutions is clear,” she said.
Castro was joined by a few dozen others who gathered downtown, carrying signs that read “Housing 4 All” and “Fund a Chicago for All,” while chanting “Tax the rich.”
Aura Rivera, an asylum-seeker who arrived in Chicago this year after leaving Venezuela for safety concerns, said at the news conference that she was grateful she and her family had a shelter to go to, because they had no other place to live. She said she’s received support, food and a way to stay warm at the shelter.
“This is important that the shelters continue for the folks that are still arriving and do not have a place to live and and do not deserve to be on the streets,” Rivera said through an interpreter. “Thank you, because the shelter, my family and I feel safer after the strong trauma we went through in our country.”
