Like 12 bucks for,
yeah.
Big white, but I mean, Sam's Club,
Sam's,
um, come in price.
12 bucks.
City of Chicago City Council.
Rules of Conduct for public meetings. 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the Sergeant Act arms sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period.
In the duration of all committee
and city council meetings, profane, vulgar, threatening,
abusive, or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others' presentations, is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted
and are subject to search.
Food and beverages, including in metal Canisters
are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the ME editing room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals or groups.
Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being.
Subject to removal from the meeting by the Sergeant at Arms,
George,
City of Chicago City Council.
Rules of Conduct for Public Meetings 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of Order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the Sergeant Act arms sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period.
In the duration of all committee
and city council meetings, profane, vulgar, threatening,
abusive, or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others' presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted in
our subject to search.
Food and beverages, including in metal.
Canisters are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the ME editing room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals or groups.
Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being.
Subject to removal from the meeting by the Sergeant at Arms
Claim,
City of Chicago City Council.
Rules of Conduct for Public Meetings 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of Order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the Sergeant at ARM sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period.
In the duration of all committee
and city council meetings, profane, vulgar, threatening,
abusive, or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others' presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted
and are subject to search.
Food and beverages, including in metal
canisters are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the ME editing room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comments speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals
or groups Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being subject
to removal from the meeting by the sergeant at arms.
Hey, uh, LA that yellow mic put it up there.
Red one back.
Maybe they back.
La red one
for the back row in case somebody back
they don't want using it in the
Well.
Hey, what's up? Going?
Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Or hours?
Yeah, I start at six.
Um, but, uh, I'm not positive if I could do
it, so, but I I,
I, I I'm waiting to error about something,
but so I, I can't say yes or no.
So if you gotta pass me on,
uh, yeah, let me, uh, let me hear, uh, let me wait
to hear something.
I'll call you. If I don't hear it
by the end of the day, I'll wait.
All right. All right, thanks. All right. Bye.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct
for Public Meetings 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of order
and procedure Rule 49,
the sergeant at Arms sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period.
In the duration of all committee
and city council meetings, profane, vulgar, threatening,
abusive, or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others' presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted.
And our subject to search food
and beverages, including in metal
canisters, are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the me heading room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals or groups.
Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being.
Subject to removal from the meeting by the Sergeant at Arms
Republic Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the sergeant at ARM sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period.
In the duration of all committee
and city council meetings, profane, vulgar, threatening,
abusive, or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others' presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted
and are subject to search.
Food and beverages, including in metal
canisters are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the ME editing room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals or groups.
Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being.
Subject to removal from the meeting by the Sergeant at Arms,
city of Chicago City Council.
Rules of Conduct for Public Meetings 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the Sergeant at ARM sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period
and the duration of all committee and city council meetings.
Profane, vulgar, threatening, abusive,
or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted
and are subject to surge.
Food and beverages, including in metal.
Canisters are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the ME room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals
or groups Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in there being subject
to removal from the meeting by the sergeant at arms.
Somebody gotta put George in, going crazy back there.
George is just screaming
crazy people.
City of Chicago, city Council Rules
of Conduct for Public Meetings.
2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of Order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the Sergeant Act arm sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period
and the duration of all committee and city council meetings.
Profane, vulgar, threatening, abusive,
or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others' presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted
and are subject to search.
Food and beverages,
including in metal Canisters are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the me heading room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals or groups.
Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being.
Subject to removal from the meeting by the Sergeant at Arms,
City of Chicago City Council.
Rules of Conduct for Public Meetings 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to the Chicago City Council rules of Order
and Procedure Rule 49,
the Sergeant at ARM sets forth the following rules
of conduct to be followed during the public comment period
and the duration of all committee and city council meetings.
Profane, vulgar, threatening, abusive,
or disruptive language is not permitted, demeaning,
discriminatory, or harassing behavior
and speech directed towards others is not permitted.
Disruptive behavior, including disruptive
or disrespectful conduct
during others presentations is not permitted.
Backpacks, large bags and sharp objects are not permitted.
Clear bags not tinted in color
that do not exceed 12 x six x 12 inches will be permitted
and are subject to search.
Food and beverages including in metal
canisters are not permitted.
Cell phones must be placed on silent.
Prior to entering the me heading room,
individuals must remain seated.
Public comment, speakers are permitted
to stand only when providing public comment.
Small handheld devices may be used only while seated,
and the user must refrain from interfering with the view
or hearing of other individuals, individuals
or groups Failing to adhere to these rules will be asked
to see such disruptive conduct
and failure to comply will result in their being.
Subject to removal from the meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
Wait. Where's the Thanks. Great.
The Committee on Immigrant
and Refugee Rights will now come
to order today.
We have one item on the agenda,
which is a subject matter hearing with no votes
to be taken on.
Landing zone conditions, shelter conditions, shelter,
grievance, procedure, and oversight of contracted agencies.
We'll begin with a roll call to establish quorum.
Uh, chairwoman Dow, I believe is, uh, online, uh,
um, Alderwoman Gutierrez.
Great. Alderman Knutson. Alright, alderman Rodriguez.
Alder person Fuentes, I saw earlier.
Alderman Faroh. Thank you.
Uh, Alderwoman Cruz Alderman Cardona.
Thank you Alder person.
Rodriguez Sanchez and Rosa are on virtual, uh, Alderwoman.
Mana Howorth. Thank you. Alderwoman Hadden I saw earlier.
Yep. Thank you.
Uh, vice Chair Taylor and myself.
There are seven members present. We have a quorum.
Uh, any non-members present? No, we, okay.
Um, Alder person, Rodriguez Sanchez, alderman Ramirez, Rosa,
and Alderwoman Dowell, as well
as Alderwoman mitts have requested a virtual option
for committee hearing attendance due
to extenuating circumstances in accordance
with Rule 59 of the City Council.
Rules of Order and Procedure
and with subsections A through D of section seven
of the Open Meetings Act.
Can I get a motion to allow, uh,
the alders mentioned to attend this hearing?
Virtually so moved
by Alderwoman Gutierrez hearing, no objections.
So ordered at this time.
We'll begin the public comment period.
The period is limited to 30 minutes
out of respect for everyone's time.
Each speaker is limited to three minutes.
Remote speakers will comment first,
followed by those in person.
As of, uh, 9:00 AM January 29th, uh, 2024,
no caller has requested
to speak at the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
So we will move on to in person speakers.
Our first, our first
speaker will be Carlos.
Uh, that's all I have here, Carlos.
Yeah, thanks.
In Spanish. Say that they have,
Yeah. Three minutes.
Mm-Hmm.
I'd like to mark, uh, Alder Woman Cruz, uh, here for Quorum
as well as Alder person Stick Cho Lopez non-member
here as well in attendance.
Thank you. And Vice Chair Taylor here
for attendance as well for Quorum.
Uh, next speaker we have is Gil Maddi.
Next speaker is,
okay, we'll go to the next speaker.
Uh, next speaker is, uh, Nora.
We, uh, thanks.
Uh, I think this highlights the need for the city
to have better language access
as we've been talking for months now.
We'll continue the next speaker. Javier.
Mm-Hmm.
Javier is the next speaker. Javier?
Nope. Okay. Next speaker. Ana,
I'll, I'll trans I'll, I'll translate.
Yeah, I'll translate for folks. Uh, as best as possible.
Uh, they said, uh, one, thank you very much.
Uh, their first ask is work authorization.
That just like anybody else here, what they wanna do is get
to work and get to work quickly.
And the work authorization is what's impeding that.
Uh, and they are grateful for the city of Chicago
for the support they provided.
Please be able to have some level of respect
as we're sharing it.
If you want translation, I need you to hear it.
We're gonna allow everyone to speak.
I would ask that you give the same respect that you want.
Thank you. Next person
is Kelly Bauman.
Hello. Hi. My name is Kelly Bauman.
I'm a resident of Chicago's 27th Ward.
I'm also a public health student,
and I'm here today to represent the hundreds of volunteers
who work with the mobile migrant health team.
You may remember us from this fall.
It's important to note that we receive no money from the
city from May until December.
We provided medical triage
and basic care to those living in police stations.
Most of our patients were newly arrived asylum seekers from
Venezuela, Columbia, and Haiti.
We also saw many, many patients who are longtime residents
of Chicago and US citizens.
In this crisis, we have seen tens of thousands
of new arrivals unjustly dropped off
with little notification
and a city unprepared to accommodate them,
let alone longtime Chicagoan who are suffering the impacts
of expiring covid error, housing assistance,
unemployment insurance, and tax credits.
I recognize that immigration policy is typically handled on
a federal level, and there's not much we can do about Texas
Governor Abbott without support from the feds.
But this crisis is highlighted.
What we already knew about Chicago, we have continued
to fail our unhoused populations, new and old.
It has strained our humanity as communities fight for
what seems to be limited resources.
So I have a few questions to ask to the mayor's office
and favorite healthcare staffing.
How can you justify the egregious price of your personnel?
We hear from our patients are consistently disrespectful
and do not provide adequate resources to new arrivals.
Can't we spend money in better ways?
Second, what are we doing
to better incorporate community-based organizations
who provide care for free
and not on city dollar to shelter care who want to help
and have been working on the front lines for months?
This includes medical teams like ours, people
who can donate food clothes and more.
And to the mayor's office and DFSS.
What are we doing to make responding
to homelessness more sustainable and equitable?
I don't think this is within o EMC's charge.
How are we supporting new arrivals, refugees,
and Chicago born residents in ways that will last?
Too many people are suffering
and there's only so much Chicagoans can do
for their neighbors without the might.
Mobilization and money of the government,
both local, state, and federal.
Thank you to everyone who has worked tirelessly
to support on house populations for years
and those who are supporting people in this current crises.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next speaker is Rosemary Vega.
Hello, my, my name is Rosemary Vega.
I'm here, um, to first thank Andre Maria
and the other aldermans who have signed on the letter, um,
to stop evictions from the shelters.
Um, just wanna say it's already
rock bottom when you're at a shelter.
Um, it's already inhumane when you're trying to find
somewhere to sleep
or just house your children, let alone people
that are coming from places
that are inhumane, theirselves, places
that are making them run from there.
And Chicago being a sanctuary city.
We need to, we need to make sure that we stand on that.
We need to make sure that we not just open the doors
when we say no borders, we mean no borders for everyone.
We mean not even here in Chicago.
Because we need to make sure that everyone eats.
We need to make sure that we have a plan for them.
They wanna work, they wanna make their own money,
they wanna get their own places.
Let's get them permits so they can work
and get their lives together.
We cannot be the movement.
We cannot be the people that allow in our legacy
for childrens to die.
You know, we just can't.
This is, this is the time for Chicago to shine
and lead by example housing.
We're, we're bring Chicago home. It's for everyone.
Let's have a plan for everyone. It is. And it should be.
It is. It is. And it should be. We're all humans.
We all deserve an opportunity.
We all deserve an opportunity at life. You know why?
So you direct your comments
so that you, why not Thank you.
But you know, again,
I just wanna be here to say thank you.
No evictions for no one. Shelters are the last resorts.
Let's make sure we don't throw people out of a shelter.
Let's make sure we put a plan together to transition them
to, to permanent housing.
Let's get them, let's get them permits.
We are, we're trying, you know, that's
Direct to me, Please.
Right? But let's just say
that we have a crisis on our hands.
And let's make sure that no more five year olds
die on our hands.
Because again, this is Chicago's legacy. This is our time.
Let's make sure we use it
and let's make sure we save people here at
home in our backyard. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Also, can,
can we make sure the timer is up
for each speaker, just so we know the time.
Okay. Can we get this one as well? Thank you.
Uh, next speaker is Christopher Amori.
Um, thank you for letting me speak today.
Um, Juan Carlos Martinez Rivera is a five-year-old boy
who died last month at a shelter in the Pilsen neighborhood.
I call him the leaders in this room.
And those involved to preach love and not hate.
Whether you believe in this person
or not, I think he's the smartest person ever
to write philosophy or anything.
He goes by the name Jesus Christ.
And he says to treat others the
way that you want to be treated.
He also says that the children of God
are the kingdom of heaven.
What does that mean? Okay.
Well, what that means to me is when you put 10 kids,
no matter what color they are,
and you put them in a room to play,
they are gonna play their hearts out.
Their souls are all one that belong to God.
They are not damaged.
They're not tampered yet by evil humans.
And that is what I believe.
And that is what Jesus Christ believed.
Imagine that Juan Carlos Martinez Rivera was
your five-year-old son.
I have three children and when I think of that, I cry.
And no one and the hate that goes around this
and the people that wanna raise their pay raise
and solve problems that are not our problems to solve
is unbelievable.
I've only been involved in this 13 days
and I cannot believe the amount of hate I personally
took in 4 48 migrants off the street in negative
14 degree weather.
'cause no one else would do it.
I'm not getting paid one, one dime.
And nor would I take one dime.
I do not want the people in my buildings any more
than you want them in your ward.
And I go to Alderman Mitchell, I go to Alderman,
and I ask, how could you help me?
How could, where could we put them?
They're not safe in Alderman Mitchell's ward. Okay?
And I understand that.
Like I said, I'm not here to solve any problems.
I am here to help the children in the street.
And that is what I call the leaders on in this room to do.
Stop focusing on hate, stop focusing on solving problems
that you know that you can't solve.
And creating division and speak love
and preach solutions to getting children off the street.
Thank you very much. Next speaker is
Jessica Jackson.
Uh, for the record, we got Alderman Rodriguez here
for, uh, quorum.
Uh, next Jessica Jackson.
I wanted to take this time to clear up a video
that I was on that was going around where it is a immigrant
that's here in City Hall that called us Lazy.
It's going around the internet where he's saying, you lazy.
You lazy. No money. Money for you, no money for you.
It's going all around the internet.
And I'm the woman that he was talking to.
I wanna clear it up. I ain't never been lazy.
In fact, I'm a 30 year degree retired accountant.
I was educated at some
of the best universities in the United States of America.
My mother paid cash for me to go to Howard University.
I didn't leave with student loans. I owned property. Okay?
So, Vasque Lopez, Rosa
DeLeon, get your people, set 'em straight.
They need to know who they talking to.
Lazy is crossing the border, begging for money
that don't belong to you.
Lazy is sitting up here acting like you an asylum
seeker when the only thing you're doing is
running to another country.
Standing on the plight of black people using our laws,
using our plight, using our issues to get ahead.
That's lazy. Lazy is sitting up here,
breaking into abandoned buildings to live in them.
Lazy is getting $30 million a month allocated to you.
But yet when you go downtown, you begging with your kids,
sitting out on the, on the sidewalk,
still begging for money.
That would be lazy.
So fast quest, I'm gonna need you to get your people lazy,
would be city hall.
Not voting Rosa out,
but sitting here suppressing the vote
for the sanctuary city.
That's you being lazy in your duties,
negligent in your duties, acting irresponsible.
And then you got the nerve to come here
and tell us about what's grounded in love.
What's grounded in hate.
We know all about what's love
because if black people wasn't full of love,
white people would've got they issue a long
time ago from us.
So I'm gonna need you to get your people straighten 'em out
and they gonna recognize who they talking
to when they talking to us.
And every time these policemen think they coming for us,
every time they let the Mexicans sit up here
and break laws won't even arrest them.
Y'all gonna live to regret that.
'cause every last one of these Mexicans
going to have y'all jobs.
You better believe that. And that go
for the teacher's unions too.
Y'all better check your paper.
Thank you for your comment. Uh, next person is, uh,
Gabriela Cortez
Eno. My name is
Gabriela Cortez.
I am the co-founder of Grassroots Voices for Chicago, born
and raised in the city, Chicago.
Proudly Esther, my parents are from Mexico, immigrants.
And they did not take nobody's job.
I will say in terms of Brandon, uh,
Johnson saying the soul Chicago,
the soul Chicago is the history of immigration
that we had in this city.
Even when the indigenous people were here,
Chicago was a trading post.
And we had different tribes
and nations, Ojibwe, pa, Miami tribes, and many more.
We have diversity today.
And let's accept that in the name of Harold Washington,
the greatest mayor of the city of Chicago.
He made the city a century so people can live here.
So they can live here.
And, and he knows, he knows what is the effect
of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
that denied free black folks to come to the north.
He knew this is the same thing we're doing to people
who are surviving, who are surviving Venezuela
because of the three sanctions imposed by Trump and Obama.
And that is why they're living hardship right now
with no food medicine coming in.
Know the history. White folks,
white supremacy is laughing right now
because they see us fighting.
We need to work together. Please
Direct your comments.
I'll say with love, sir. With love, please. I love you.
I love you. So I will say in terms of that 5-year-old
who passed away, where is the money going?
We spent millions of dollars
and why can't we take care of that 5-year-old boy?
Right? We need to act with humanity in the name
of Mayor Washington, who pushed this, who understood
what solidarity is.
And I will say that we are here to, to share this voice,
to welcome those vene, Sonos.
Because Chicago has always welcomed migrants from the,
from the south, right?
From fugitive slave back. Ma'am, look it up.
From white groups, right? And today is the 21st century.
You are looking, Venezuelans are actually
parked. Yes, please.
The record comments to the chair, thank you.
Of the black diaspora. Recognize it.
We are all black inside of us. We come from Africa.
Let's know this history.
And right now, white
supremacists, I'll tell you how it works.
Ukrainian refugees come in and they have federal benefits.
That's white supremacy.
Ukrainians are actually working as
custodians in these shelters.
That's why supremacy,
we're denying these folks who want to work.
They crossed and walk so long,
thousands of miles to get here.
Right in the name of God, in the name of humanity.
Let's serve these people right.
And work together because all of Chicago is hurting.
I feel your pain. I do feel it. I sure do. Please direct
Your comments to the chair.
Martin Luther King said, Martin Luther King said,
darkness cannot be overcome by, by darkness.
Light can only only overcome darkness.
Thank you. It's time.
Thank you for your comments.
Next speaker is Lorraine Lawrence.
Uh, Lorraine Lawrence lra.
My apologies, Lorraine Lawrence.
Alright, so I listened to a lot of these,
so-called press conferences
and things that were stated on there.
And I'm gonna start with one thing.
First, I noticed that a lot of Latino caucus,
you all stand together.
I give you that. But what about your black caucuses?
Where are you all at when it's time for coming for
and protecting our neighborhoods, the things
that are going down within our neighborhoods.
So I'm gonna go with this $150 million that's been
appropriated for illegals.
I'd like to know where that money at that I came down here
and talked about on December 14th for the west side
and the south side communities.
Still waiting on that. Still waiting.
Hadn't seen nothing yet on that.
Uh, Vasquez, I got something for you.
Let me, let's just get to the statement
that you made in your press conference.
They don't want to face that frustration,
fear, and ignorance
that they're hearing from the constituents when we're
talking about the sanctuary city.
I wanna add that part.
Let's put that question on the ballot is what they said.
Let's point that energy somewhere else
because I wanna make sure I remain in my seat.
Yeah, he said that about all the rest of you alderman,
that don't stand up for what they want.
So that's a problem.
'cause you said it express, I go back
and look at videos verbatim.
So let's talk about that.
Now, I also had something for your mayor,
but since he's not here today
with his scripture quoting thumping self, uh,
will go beyond that.
Okay? Because when we talk about iron sharpening iron, yo,
you all that know the scriptures.
You'll know about iron sharpening iron and that iron. Sure.
Not taking place in the right places.
So I'm gonna talk on that one another time.
Uh, this blueprint for creating a more
and just vibrant city for all.
Where is that? Because we're not seeing it.
It's all everywhere else for illegals. I apologize.
I cannot call them migrants.
'cause see, migrants are people who come through the gates,
the borders, which is not borders
where they should be coming in legally, the right way.
We have as a black community, respect
for those who come in legally.
But those who don't, we do not.
And we're not because you all have taken up our resources.
That's right. Keep watching the time.
'cause I'm watching it too. So I got 29 seconds to say,
you all need to get it together.
You need to show unity and supporting all, not just some.
Okay, now I made my voice clear.
I hope you heard it real well.
All the ut v stations
and everybody up in this room know where I'm coming from.
Have a blessed day.
Thank you, Ms. Lawrence. Next speaker is
Mr. George Blakemore.
I'm I'm Mr. This morning, I'm Mr. George Blakemore.
Sir, I'm not saying Mr. To you black lives.
Now these illegal,
undocumented new arrivals are getting resource
that the blacks have never gotten
or what I wanna speak correct English resources.
Millions of dollars.
How many times have you been arrested, Mr.
Blakemore for p or oh? Thousands of times.
And they say, get off of Michigan Avenue.
You can't sell over here by Joe Donald.
These illegals are selling everywhere.
Everywhere. And they don't have no work permit.
So I wanna address black people.
Something is wrong with us to let another people come over
and get ahead of us.
Something on the plantation. What did the master make?
And start with an end.
We gotta purge ourself of this
and become strong black men and women.
You waited for me where you can steal from me.
You steal the joy from us. We've been here enslaved here.
None of these people have better been enslaved here.
None of them bad. None of them.
And we don't know their names.
We don't know what they pedophiles killers
or stealers or drug addict.
We know nothing about them. Nothing about them.
So I know one thing, they're not the cream
of a crop of Venezuela.
Oh, they're not the engineers and doctors and lawyers
and chemists and education of Venezuela.
You know what happened to black people
when we was on the plantation?
They got the indention servers.
This time they're letting out all their criminal,
all their mental Mr.
Blakemore, you are lying. How do you know they not?
How can you, you don't know if her name
is a Bella or contra.
You know nothing about them.
You don't know nothing about them. That, that's right.
And had a desk today.
I'm sorry, I, I I I, I said, uh, uh,
uh, last time we had this kinda meeting,
all my people was here and I stole your minutes.
You go to court and you straighten that out
with these police, straighten it out.
There's something wrong with black people. Where are you?
Black people. Where are our people?
Our, we have poor black leadership. No black leadership.
You supposed to inform
and engage your people to come here and go.
Why would a black person vote for a sanctuary?
What what would motivate you to,
to give millions of dollars to people.
And you not getting nothing. No, they get food.
Thank you Mr. Blakemore.
Uh, final speaker will be Monica Lewis.
I believe it's Monica Lewis.
Is that okay?
So that'll, that'll be it for the speakers. Thank you.
Uh, there being no more speakers.
Uh, the public comment period is,
yeah, we, we don't have time for everyone that registered.
We had 30 minutes, so I apologize.
Uh, the public comment period is concluded.
We'll begin with the routine matters of the committee.
Our first item is the approval
of the December Rule 45 report in your packet
can have a motion to approve the December Rule 45 report.
So moved by Alder person, Fuentes hearing. No objections.
So orders ordered, sorry.
The item on the agenda
before committee is a subject matter hearing on landing zone
conditions, shelter conditions, shelter, grievance,
procedure and oversight of contracted agencies.
I wanna begin by expressing our relief
and gratitude for the city's reversal
of the 60 day shelter limit.
While we know that the challenges represented
by the unprecedented
and unpredictable levels of newcomers arriving
to our city is real, I'm proud
that our city has in this decision, lived up
to its status as a welcoming city.
We're here today to make sure
that we keep living up to that goal.
Over the past two years, the city has worked hard
to meet the needs of new arrivals,
but real concerns have also arisen as
to the conditions in our shelters and landing zones.
And those conditions demand urgent attention.
We've heard reports of inadequate food bedbug
and rodent infestations, a lack of containment
for infectious diseases
and failures to provide treatment for medical conditions.
We cannot afford to let these conditions go unaddressed.
So we will hear from the city today about their plans
to address their concerns.
Uh, DFSS and OEMC will be here to talk about their plan
to improve conditions at shelters
and landing zone respectively, as well
as the mayor's office, who will discuss their overall plan
for rising to meet the challenge
and opportunity represented by the continuing arrivals
of new ki of new arrival of newcomers in our city.
Before we begin, I want to focus on our goal, not only
for new arrivals, but for all Chicagoans,
including the newest of them.
A city who provides shelter for everyone,
and not only shelter, but a continuum of care
that helps those who are, uh, need
to access the services they need.
There's been a lot of talk in this meeting about new
arrivals versus Chicagoans
and really talk citywide about new
arrivals versus Chicagoans.
I wanna be clear that they are not separate entities
in a welcoming city.
You become a neighbor the day you arri arrive.
Whether you come here from Venezuela, from Haiti,
or even the suburbs.
Our city belongs to you the day you set foot in it.
And I know that if we work together, we can rise
to the challenge of providing dignified shelter
and care for all Chicagoans, including new arrivals.
We will now have testimony in total.
We will limit the presentation of 30 minutes
because we anticipate alders wanting
to ask you all questions.
And we've got a workforce development committee
meeting just after this.
I will provide time checks at 15, 25 and 30 minutes.
Uh, I will turn it over to the presenters from the mayor's
office and executive departments
who will introduce themselves using their full names,
titles, and department or office names.
If you're called to respond to a question from the box,
please provide that information as well.
So I will introduce the mayor's office to take it from here.
Thank you, chairman Basquez. My name is Beatriz Pon Leon.
I'm the Deputy Mayor for Immigrant Migrant Refugee
rights for the City of Chicago.
And I wanna take the thank the chairman
and his staff for convening this meeting
and to the members of the committee
for your partnership in addressing this ongoing
humanitarian crisis.
Thanks also to folks who come in, people
who have joined us this morning to voice your opinions
and concerns as we take them all seriously
and use them as we move forward with our work.
I would like to start by saying
that today you'll receive the latest on the new arrivals
operation, including updates on the shelter, state policy,
the grievance process, landing zone bus ordinance,
our TPS work authorization clinics,
and more, accompanying me to provide further details
and to answer your questions, our commissioner Brandi Kazi
of the Department of Family and Support Services,
Maura McCauley, managing Deputy Commissioner for DFSS,
Matt Dowdy, manager
of Emergency Management Services at OEMC.
And in the box, our colleagues, first Deputy of the Office
of Migrant, a migrant, uh, immigrant,
migrant and refugee rights.
Ray nces najera, DFSS,
new arrivals Director Daniel Castaneda
and DFSS, new Arrivals project manager, BJ Lore.
We're also joined by our OEMC Manager
of Emergency Management Services, Matt Lak.
Since August of 2022,
the city has welcomed over 35,000 migrants,
largely asylum seekers arriving
to the Chica Chicago area from the southern border.
This includes about 30,400 individuals
who arrived at the city's landing zone,
primarily on buses sent here by Texas
and just over 4,500 migrants who've flown into O'Hare.
And midway since June of 2023.
As of yesterday, January 29th, the city is providing shelter
to 13,878.
New arrivals in our 28 temporary shelters sys, um,
temporary shelters across the city.
And there are currently approximately 180 people at O'Hare
waiting for a shelter placement.
Those are our basic numbers.
You'll hear a little bit more about that
and the operations that support that work.
As we all know, this is an unprecedented complex
and ever changing operation.
It requires us to be creative, collaborative,
strategic, and nimble.
And you'll see in the presentation today
that this is a maturing operation.
Um, the work that has evolved over the last several months
is at a a, a critical moment.
It has evolved quickly
and, um, the team has really been able to stand up a variety
of services and operations to meet the moment.
With very little support from the federal government,
Chicago has been able
to build an emergency shelter operation at a pace never
experienced before.
In fact, in late summer
and the fall when the number
of buses increased dramatically,
we were opening a shelter just about every week,
once every seven to eight days.
But after this period of rapid expansion,
we have recently put a pause on opening New
City Run shelters.
While we look to, while we look
to make more data informed decisions
to maintain a sustainable shelter system focused on quality
and safety, this effort has required new levels
of partnerships and a renewed sense
of shared responsibility across not only Chicago,
but the Chicago region and Illinois.
We are a welcoming city in a welcoming state.
Chicago has led with shelter operations while the state
and the county have connected new arrivals
to healthcare rental assistance
and other resources that help them transition out
of the shelter system towards self-sufficiency.
It's not perfect nor easy, but the city, state
and county have collaborated to get this done.
And we're currently developing a shared strategy with them
to address this mission together.
Looking for ways that we can leverage our combined resources
and expand shelter capacity outside of Chicago.
More details will be
provided in the weeks to come as this plan comes together.
It will also be used to inform Chicago's go forward plan
for 2024.
Beyond government, we've engaged
with partners from other sectors,
generating support from philanthropy, faith communities,
human service organizations,
and community-based organizations.
The Unity, faith-based initiative is just one example.
Chicagoan Chicago was also awarded eight Vista members
that will be joining both DFSS
and the mayor's office in the the following co two months
and will be, uh, assisting us
as we go deeper in the work at the shelters,
as well as in the mayor's office.
We've also partnered with Chicago Cares
and the Chicago Refugee Coalition to launch a volunteer, um,
placement and development program.
And we have heard from many of you
that there are already individuals who've been volunteering,
providing many services.
Um, it's been a challenge to integrate those volunteers
and that support in a more formal way.
We're looking to this new program to help us do that.
We're grateful to all of the groups that have stepped up
and to the thousands of Chicagoans who've helped our new
neighbors as they make their way in the us.
Um, all of you have also been creative, collaborative,
and nimble as you have managed the many changes of where
to access new arrivals,
where you can step in and to support.
And we thank you for that.
The overall goals of the mission remain the same.
One is to welcome new arrivals with dignity,
to meet their most basic needs for shelter, food,
and urgent medical care,
and to connect them to resources that put them on a path
to self-sufficiency and resettlement.
We heard today, um, in Spanish a call
for support in work authorization and work permits.
People are here to work to rebuild, make a new life, um,
and our work together with the state, our work together
with the state and the federal government is
to support them on that resettlement path.
Although we know that work authorization is a federal
responsibility, it is not one that the city
or state alone can put forth.
But we understand that people need those resources
to be able to move out of the temporary shelter spaces
and build a life here if they choose to stay.
Number two is that we are leveraging this moment
to build the infrastructure that Chicago needs for crisis
response and a better system of care
for all people experiencing homelessness, regardless
of whether they have been homeless for five days
or five years, whether they are longtime
Chicagoans or new to the city.
We know that this work
that we're undergoing now will lead us to a better,
more adaptable, um, home service homeless service provision
for our Chicagoans.
And finally, the updates that you'll hear today will show
that we have been making progress towards these goals in a
fiscally responsible manner.
We understand that there are financial constraints
that the city is operating under.
And while we do this work
of providing the most basic shelter, um,
and other supports, we're doing it in a way
that is fiscally responsible, that remains aligned
with the values and the policies of the administration.
And that is co It is really, um, emblematic
of our commitment to serve all of Chicago.
I wanna just touch on a couple things that will be, um,
spoken about more in depth.
One is in October, the state of Texas began to send buses
at all hours of the day
and to drop people off in different locations.
Um, we saw a need to establish an ordinance
that would help us establish a more
predictive and safe process.
So we passed the bus ordinance,
which put limits on when buses could drop people off
and where they could drop them off.
Texas has chosen to bypass this ordinance
by dropping people off in suburban municipalities.
The OEMC team will comment more on the outcomes of that
and how the operation has changed given the new conditions.
And yesterday we announced an update
to the 60 day shelter stay policy.
As of today, all shelter residents that were due to exit
between January 17th
and March 28th have been granted an additional either 30
or 60 days, depending on when they entered shelter.
This will ensure that no one will exit shelter
during our coldest months unless they are prepared to do so.
Commissioner Kazi will provide further details on that
and on the types of supports that people will have
to help them with a move out plan.
This new pattern of migration
that we're experiencing in Chicago is not limited to Chicago
or even to other cities in the us across the world.
Millions of people have fled war persecution,
violence, and extreme poverty.
And they're arriving in cities like ours
that aren't fully prepared for them.
But that with time may actually enhanced
by these new neighbors.
How we manage what we do in this moment is
what will set Chicago apart
and taking the opportunities to be collaborative
and to create bold solutions, both local
and federal is important.
As we know that this is a new phase of migration,
I wanna just comment on two of our federal advocacy, um,
work that we've been doing In August 28th.
On August 28th, mayor Johnson
and Governor Pritzker called on DHS Secretary Mayorkas
to allow the state of Illinois
to issue its own temporary work authorization
to non-citizens.
This is, um, allowable in our state.
States are able to do this if they have permission from DHS.
And doing this would grant work authorization not only
to new arrivals, but to other non-citizens.
Uh, there is one other, um, option
that people have been exploring
to provide opportunities for people to work.
They're able to secure individual
taxpayer identification numbers.
Its, and then use those to order.
Please work as independent contractors in the hopes
of starting their own business
or sustaining themselves as business owners.
Again, this is a creative solution to a problem
that requires really greater federal, um, coordination.
And finally, I would say I would invite you
to visit our website.
We update the page regularly
with information about the mission, our federal advocacy
and opportunities for supporting either
as donors or volunteers.
And as we look to the future for Chicago, we will continue
to aim to build a stronger, safer, better community for all,
both for existing Chicagoans and our new neighbors.
And we know that we can't do this alone.
This is a citywide effort
and it will take continue
to take collaboration from all sectors
of our city and government.
Thank you so much for being here.
And I now pass it on to Commissioner Kazi.
Thank you. Just to let you know, we're 10 minutes
in, so it's 20 for the rest. So
Fast. Okay. Thank you
Chair. I'm gonna talk fast members
of the committee because I wanna
make sure we get through the deck.
Uh, just talking about where we are today,
there's currently 14,058 people in shelter or in our care.
Of that 13,878 are in the 28 shelters.
The remaining 180 people are at O'Hare Airport.
And you all know these numbers fluctuate
as we do out migration
and sheltering as well as, uh, road buses.
In terms of the shelter, RFP,
we released an RFP on August 29th.
It closed on October 6th.
Uh, the goal was to break down the bed rate of getting 22
to $35 per day.
Per per day. Right now, we do not,
we have not released those awards.
We are waiting to go over the city, county state plan.
Once we have that plan, then we will make awards on which
shelters will, uh, transition.
I think it's important to know when we released that RFP,
we released it for 15.
We did not get takers for every shelter meals. RFP.
Some of you may have heard we did award the meals RFP
contract started on January 16th.
I just wanna first call out the fact
that we typically do a transition for a meal provider.
It takes 30 days.
When I was at the county, we did this in a week,
so it was really fast.
Uh, things have been going well.
The two providers
that were awarded 77 communities has the North region.
The dividing line is Lake Street
and 14 Parish, um, from Hyde Park has the South region.
The goal right now, we have, uh, encumbered 10.1 million
for 77 and 12.8 million for 14 parish.
Uh, and that's for the next four months.
Um, moving on to TPS
and employment authorization document.
So we started having, uh,
employment clinics, uh, in November.
There are three phases to this phase.
One is we've been working on individuals
who are in city shelters.
We've been going through that so far.
You'll see on the next slide about a little bit over a
thousand applications or work
authorizations have been approved.
Second phase is really focusing on people
who are in other shelters.
Perhaps they're in our homeless shelters
or shelters that are not run by the city.
And those who may have connected to Ace Rap and moved out
before the legal clinic started in November.
That's gonna start in February.
And then the third phase, we're gonna really look
to new arrivals who are not in shelters.
You know, maybe they moved out on their own at the beginning
of the program and you know, they're still here
and they need support with legal services.
The goal, really, of these clinics is
to centralize the process, bring everyone together.
Uh, this is a, uh, effort that's being led with the state
and the US customs and in immigration, uh, department.
And I think just having them here is really important.
'cause this is a process that takes upwards of nine months.
We're trying to get it down to 30 to 60 days.
Um, so far, again, on the right side,
you'll see the numbers, but overall,
2,888 have been submitted.
I think there's been questions about, hey,
there was this really big number.
Uh, why is that lower?
That was really done
by the state when they were estimating based
on numbers from New York.
We're a lot different from New York.
So we're estimating about 15 to 20% of people
who are in shelter are actually eligible for the clinics.
Moving to the next slide about just what are we doing
to help people, uh, with workforce.
So again, 1031 work permits have been granted.
And so as people are receiving their work permits,
the first thing that we're doing is referring them
to the American Job Center.
We wanna make sure that they not only have the work permits,
but they're able to order please,
but they're able to actually start thinking about their
workforce development class.
The two other things you'll note, the second
and third bullets are resource fairs that are coming up.
The first one is the adult employment fair
with the Chicago Cook Partnership.
The second one is the skills, uh, the youth skills, uh,
youth skills trades fair that takes place with CPS.
It's a three day event that CPS has been
running for the last three years.
We're gonna make sure that we invite our young
people to that as well.
And then last is how we're engaging with employers
of connecting them not only through webinars,
but also the Chicago Cook Partnership,
our workforce development partners,
and, um, our deputy mayor for what's Kenya's, um,
business affairs, just
to make sure we're engaging employers.
Um, go back too far.
I'm gonna let more talk about incident
reporting and grievances.
Right? 15 minutes, just to let you know.
Good afternoon. Good.
Um, I'm gonna talk a little bit about our incident
and res resident grievance process within the shelter system
over the, Over the course, over the course
of the mission incident
and NCE grievance reporting systems have evolved.
Originally, they were very much at,
at the individual shelter level.
Um, but, but we have evolved this to a centralized process
so that the city can review and, uh, patterns, trends, um,
and issue resolution across the entire system.
This is a best practice that we expect of all
of our homeless shelter de delegates,
and we don't expect zero incidents
or grievances, um, especially with 15,000 residents
and over a thousand staff.
But we do expect
and uphold ourselves to a process that is responsive.
Um, so incident reports, um, are reported
by the staff about different things
that go on in the shelter, like 9 1 1 calls, um, fights,
conduct issues, other health and wellness issues.
Um, on average, uh,
we have about 516 incident reports filed per week.
That's 74 per day on average.
And then residents grievances are issues that are
and concerns that are reported by residents.
Um, the average number
of grievance residents grievances filed per week is 37 in
the last 90 days, and that's about an average
of five per day.
Um, so a little bit more,
a little bit more detail about
the resident grievance process.
Um, staff do encourage residents at, at intake
and in-house meetings
and in day-to-Day interactions to address issues in-house
as they arise, as long as they feel safe to do so.
Um, and some resident issues don't
rise to the formal process.
Um, and some do if resolution has not been
resolved at the, at the shelter level.
But we do have a formal gr resident grievance process
that involves, um, a QR code that allows residents to scan,
um, and get to the resident grievance foun form.
Um, it is posted all over, um, the shelters, um,
and residents can submit their grievance
on a number of issues.
The types of issues that residents report is actually
evolving over, over the course of this mission.
And as we've implemented this process, um,
and once the res, once the grievance is submitted,
we have a staff grievance team out
of the Emergency Operations Center who reviews it.
And the goal is to conduct an initial review within
three to seven days.
Um, the grievance team reaches out to the individual
who reported the issue.
If they so wish, again, this can be done anonymously,
so sometimes that's not possible.
Um, but we al also, there is a commitment
to respecting confidentiality and privacy in this process.
So they will gather information from witnesses,
from the person, from staff.
They will make a recommendation on a resolution, um,
to the shelter leadership to DFSS team.
And the resolution will be closed out.
Um, the resolutions vary depending on the issues.
Sometimes it's a facility issue
and we'll bring in different departments or landlords.
Um, sometimes it's about a vendor
and we'll need to have conversations
with those, those third parties.
Um, but once the resident's grievance is, um, closed out,
it is documented, um, in our, in our grievance system.
Um, so this is a, just an overview of the resident,
the formally reported grievances from residents.
Um, you can see we have 716 that have been filed.
Um, the categories
of the most common grievances at this point are staff
complaints, vendor
or partner complaints, complaints against other residents,
and then facility food, um, and security concerns.
Um, and then incident reports again are reported by staff.
And again, this is helpful
because it shows that our staff are paying attention.
They are reporting.
Um, we've had 13,166 incident reports filed.
And the top five categories, um, really are
around curfew violation, health
and wellness, code of conduct violations,
unattended children,
and a range of other issues that fall into a category.
Order please. So as we talked about,
the 60 day policy was extended yesterday.
So anyone in shelter between who we're supposed
to exit shelter between January 16th
and January 29th will receive a 60 day extension.
And approximately 56 5,673 people
fall into that category.
Residents who were supposed to exit between March 1st
and March 28th will also be given a 30 day extension.
There's approximately 2100 people that are in that category.
Starting on February 1st, we are going into wave two
of our resettlement plan.
And so those are people who are connected
to the States 90 day shelter resettlement plan.
And so 5,900 individuals will receive 60 day notices
starting on the first in terms of
how we'll be doing the checkpoints.
Again, the first checkpoint will take place two weeks
after an individual arrives.
There's a series of questions that our shelter team will ask
and our case managers to see if people have a plan
and to help them start thinking about their plan.
Then within 21 days, two weeks
before individuals leave, there'll be a second checkpoint
for people to ask them about screening if at
that time they say that they don't have other options,
we'll begin to talk through
what a possible extension looks like.
And so, as we've discussed,
there are three categories for an extension.
One is if someone is working on their housing placement,
if they're able to show us the lease, they're able
to talk to us about that.
They're in the PLA process of working through housing
with Catholic Charities.
We'll be able to get that documentation.
Second one is severe weather.
We've experienced that already.
So we know that OEMC will let us know when we're having
extreme cold or extreme hot,
and then familiar circumstances
that includes maternal health of someone
with a disability if there's a death in the family.
And so we will deal with those on an individual basis.
And based on the type of concern we have,
the appropriate parties that will help, uh,
weigh in on that extension.
Um, as you all know, we are very grateful for the positions
that were approved in the 2024 budget for new staff members.
And so, again, just to reiterate what was approved,
we are receiving one deputy commissioner,
eight program managers, two analyst and a director.
We have three staff right now.
And so this will bring our staff
for the new arrivals division to a total of 15.
Once they are hired, the postings have closed,
but we are in the process of beginning to interview.
And so this is just really a layout of, as you know,
we already had seven programmatic divisions.
This will be our eighth. This will focus on contract
management, oversight of the program, delivering services,
tracking metrics, just as we do
for the other seven program divisions.
Okay. Um, and then I will provide an update on our,
I think our shared goal of unifying our new
arrivals and homeless systems.
So, um, a a a recent update is that the city
and state have agreed to, to move toward this common goal.
Um, and the Illinois office to prevent
and end homelessness is funding a technical assistance, um,
engagement to bring together stakeholder communities from
the homeless system, from the immigrant, um,
and refugee response systems
and other community stakeholders to really plan out
what this, what it would take to unify, um, the systems.
So we are in the process of, um,
technical assistance beginning and kicking off.
Um, and that will go through pretty much mid-summer.
And at that point, we expect to have work plans, um,
and further information about timelines
so we can start making incremental changes
that are possible now
and then make plans for, um, systems changes
and bringing the systems together, um,
more meaningfully in 2025.
To just give you a brief idea about
what this facilitation process will look like.
It is going to talk about our leadership structure,
how decisions will be made around policies that impact
how the system operates,
bringing teams on the ground together, who are charged
with making those changes
and helping them problem solve and troubleshoot.
We'll be doing cross training across the system
so everyone is prepared to welcome someone into the shelter
or other crisis response services no
matter where they may enter.
We have a lot of work to do on language
access across the system.
So creating a language access plan
and supporting our providers in implementing those plans.
Um, a lot of work on process flow
and the types of services that will be, um,
necessary across the system.
A lot of integration with the existing systems of care
data is a huge issue.
How we will track and monitor everybody, um,
and then again, ending with work plans
and tangible action steps
to really operationalize this vision.
And now I will pass it over to Matt Dowdy at OEMC.
Morning. Do you wanna switch with Yeah, yeah.
That way you can.
Good morning. Matt Dowdy from OEMC.
Um, I'm gonna speak a little bit about our landing
zone operations.
Our landing zone continues to be, uh, an evolving process.
You know, going back to August of 2022,
our original landing zone was located immediately adjacent
to, uh, union Station.
Uh, when roadwork began on Canal Street,
we relocated several blocks south last fall.
Uh, and most recently we have relocated once again
to 800 south to Plains.
Um, and that is where our current operations reside.
Um, our landing zone is operational 24 7
to receive any buses.
Of course, it's been, uh,
a little while since we've actually received buses from
Texas directly at our landing zone as alluded to earlier.
They're currently largely dropping off in
suburban locations.
Now, uh, we are als
but we are also prepared to receive, uh, people
who walk up, uh, on their own.
OEMC has established some communication networks
with our emergency management colleagues
in surrounding counties.
Uh, so we will get notice when, uh, buses arrive at one
of these suburban locations.
Um, so we have a somewhat of an idea of
what could be coming our way when, uh,
these populations land at either Ogilvy
or, uh, union Station.
Uh, we also accept our, uh, new arrivals
that are perhaps have shown up in one
of our police districts again.
And then we've worked with our transportation company, uh,
to bring them back over to the landing zone
to get processed in our reception center.
Um, we have our Chicago Department of Public Health has, uh,
our, uh, medical providers, which will work
to identify acute healthcare concerns, uh,
with some of our clients that are there.
Um, we're gonna provide some immediate needs such
as blankets, water, uh, res meals, ready
to eat if necessary, uh, hygiene kits
and baby formula if necessary.
Um, the landing zone is intended
to be a short-term reception center.
Our goal is to get people onward to their next destination
as soon as possible.
So that next destination, uh, may be,
uh, one of our shelters.
However, they also may have friends
or family that they can stay with, uh,
with our partners from New Life Centers
and Catholic Charities.
Uh, they can help get them to their next destination, uh,
whether it's by, you know,
getting an Uber ride somewhere within town
or by purchasing a bus
or train tickets via Catholic Charities
to another destination outside of Chicago.
Um, currently we have, uh,
I believe zero people at our landing zone.
Now, uh, we've, we're currently in the middle of a little
lull, uh, over the last couple of weeks, uh,
where we have not been receiving many buses.
So that gives us a little bit of breathing room there.
Um, OEMC manages our, our landing zone
with assistance from our Department of Streets
and Sanitation and our contractors from favorite staffing.
Our, our contractors are largely, uh, doing data entry, uh,
managing the waiting list and working
with our operations team to figure out the best, uh, place
to put people when they arrive in our sheltering system.
Um, all of our favorite staffers are Spanish speaking,
so they're very valuable in translation services
and they're providing overnight, uh, security as well.
So, I think I covered most of the essentials there.
Um, as I mentioned, new life centers is also there,
a weekdays from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM providing, uh,
initial welcoming services, uh, providing clothing, snacks,
food, um,
and some of that local relocation services
that we mentioned in our Catholic charities.
Uh, partners are also there in those same hours Monday
through Friday, providing those OUTMIGRATION services.
As you know, we instituted the, uh, the bus ordinance, uh,
recently in the last couple of months.
Uh, the goal was to, uh, get this to some level of order
and man and ma and allow us to manage it more appropriately.
Uh, so we didn't have buses arriving, um,
at all hours of night.
So we've set up designated times, designated days
for those buses to arrive.
Uh, of course, they need to have a 48 hour notice
and apply through the Chicago Department
of Transportation to get approved.
Um, we have received,
or excuse me, we have, uh, of course issued some, uh,
citations and violations, uh, since the implementation
of this ordinance, we have 95 tickets, uh,
written for violation.
Uh, and we've had two bus impoundments since then.
And we've had, uh, three AOVs for illegal sewage, uh,
dropping since that time as well.
Uh, to this date, I don't believe we've collected, uh,
any fines from those citations, though.
Uh, and just a couple more stats.
We've received 602 buses here in Chicago going back
to August of 2022.
And, uh, we've learned in the suburbs that, uh,
we've had approximately 215 buses
arrive either in suburban metro stations
or other locations, plus the one plane that arrived, uh,
in Rockford last month. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the presentation.
Uh, wanna note for the record, uh,
alderman Kon is here, uh, for Quorum.
Um, I have a, a couple of questions
before I open it up to the rest of the committee,
uh, if that's, thank you.
Um, so I'd like to start out
by asking a question about the way DFSS plans.
Its role in vendor performance management.
So we know vendors are supposed to adhere
to guidelines in the RFP, they win.
But can you share, like, what are the concrete metrics
around performance management
for shelter and landing zone vendors?
Like favorite staffing and 77 communities, and how often,
and by what methods do you assess performance?
So maybe let's start with the last question first.
So, the new food contract was awarded on January 16th.
We have two providers, 77 communities, and 14 parish.
Many of you may know 14 parish.
They are a black-owned women business on
53rd Street in Hyde Park.
And so, um, we've been at it for two weeks now.
This is going on week three.
Part of what we're doing is this transition is meeting
with the vendors every day.
We have a, one
of our project managers on the new arrivals team,
she is the liaison, uh, for all of our contracts at DFSS.
The program managers meet with their vendors.
Uh, sometimes we do that monthly, quarterly.
In this particular case, it's daily.
Um, there are metrics in the contract.
And so one, when you don't meet them, we begin
to have conversations as we escalate, we can then have,
people will come in, they may sit down with me,
we'll make a corrective action plan,
and we'll escalate from there.
Um, in terms of favorite, we are working
with them really diligently.
Ben, do you wanna talk Danny, about some of the ways
that we're working, uh, with favorite staffing?
Uh, good morning everyone.
Danny Castaneda, director for New Arrivals at DFSS.
Um, so right now we actually meet monthly with favorite, uh,
corporate so that they understand
what the mission needs continue to be, um,
and any sort of troubleshooting that we need to continue
to work on, whether it's on sort
of the contract management side
or what we're seeing in terms of performance, um,
on the favorite staff on the ground.
Um, so that's one way, you know, uh,
we also have the incident reporting system, um,
is really useful for us
because we then get to see, um,
if staff are being responsive, how they're being responsive,
and if it's according to the standards that we've outlined
for them in sort of the shelter, uh,
standard operating guide.
So that is how we hold the favorite staff accountable, is
that we have have procedures and policies,
policies in place.
Um, and they basically have to report everything
that's happening on the ground.
So that's how we monitor, um, that they're, you know,
carrying out the work according to the
expectations that we've laid out for them.
Ultimately, if someone is not performing,
uh, we'll do the best thing.
We'll do everything possible to retrain
and make sure that expectations are being met
and that we see that improvement.
And ultimately, if that doesn't occur, then um,
we would terminate employment.
But otherwise, uh, we want to coach, retrain
and make sure folks are on the right path.
And ultimately, if it leads to, um, dismissal, we,
we will, uh, come to that.
And just to kind of add, add a little bit more context
to it, shelter staff, report up to site captains,
then site captains work
with project managers in the department.
So right now we have 3D FSS project managers who are working
with the site captains.
They're bringing that. And then Danny
and Moore are sitting with them.
And so there's layers to how we get feedback
and we're having those meetings.
But the site captains are on site multiple times a week,
sometimes daily at the shelters.
And then the project managers are also going out
to those sites working with
what they see on the ground as well.
Thank you very much for that.
Um, next, uh, I really appreciate that showing the reporting
and like the grievances and the incidents.
Um, what I'd wonder if we can get a commitment
for like the s especially those
that have like shelters in their wards, to kind
of get those breakdowns, um, on a regular basis,
however is manageable.
'cause I think, you know, obviously
what we saw in the shelter on Halstead
and like that being the news where some
of 'em respond out regular
reporting to know what's
happening. 'cause we hear the concerns.
Let's talk to Eric to see
what we can provide to you on a regular basis.
Okay. Thank you for that.
Um, uh,
and I guess, uh, similarly a check in on the unification
of the shelter systems and kind of like the timelines.
I know you guys mentioned that, so I
wanna follow up on that.
Um, I guess, uh,
You want us to respond to that one chair? Well
Just almost like through the
chair, like, we'll just follow up on
Those and, and we won't, the,
the initial report from the TA session
won't be out until June.
So we will be a little dark from now until June. Yeah.
And then we'll see the timeline. Okay. And
That's, that's completely understandable.
I'm just glad that that's the direction we're looking.
I, um, so I think, uh, we've got, uh,
really two more.
I, I know we've thankfully kind
of paused on the 60 day eviction policy.
Something that, that we hadn't asked
and we're kind of curious is, as it relates to CPS
and when you've got kids who are going to school, how does
that play out if potentially someone hasn't found, you know,
a place, uh, to, to go, um,
maybe all thought through what the process?
So we're gonna continue to work with CPS on that.
So Karima is our lead from CPS.
She sits, uh, with us
and works on with us daily about not only enrollment,
but she will also be a part, her
and her team will be a part of this
to make sure there's the least disruption
as we move people around.
Like the goal is hopefully there will be no disruption,
but we know theoretically there will be some,
and we'll work very closely with CPS on that. Okay.
Thank you for that. And then finally, I know, uh,
one I appreciate mentioning kinda like the staffing
for the Office of New Arrivals.
I know when we had talked through budget, um, some
of the conversation was about, um, some of, um,
of those staff kind of being helpful
to the office of the deputy mayor.
I think we had talked like one or two positions.
Has that been sorted out as far
as like adding the capacity to the office?
So one, the positions just closed,
so we're still formulating.
Um, I think, let me just maybe put things in perspective.
So for the homeless division, we have 15 staff, right?
And that's for a system that's of 3000 people, 50 shelters.
And so the new arrivals division is five times the
size of the homeless division.
And so having the PMs on site is really important to get
to the contract management and the daily operations.
And so what we're doing now is really thinking about
what will this look like as we reduce favorite
staff that supports the team.
'cause it's three people right now,
and they work, you know, 12 hours a day.
Our team works, our city hours are seven
hours a day, Monday through Friday.
They work 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
And so I think we're still figuring out
what is the right balance of where do we need people.
And as we meet and understand
where we're going on the journey
with the city county state plan, then we can see
what is the right balance for the DFSS team.
And then where can we spare staff? Okay.
Yeah, if we can, uh, continue communication
with the committee on that, just to figure out
to your point, like what does right look like
considering all the moving parts.
So, uh, thank you for that. That's all I've got.
Uh, our first member is, uh, alderman, uh, Rodriguez,
followed by Alderwoman Hadden.
Thank you Mr. Chair. And thank you
all for your presentations.
I'd first, uh, like to thank the public commenters,
particularly our Venezuelan brothers
and sisters who have come to raise their voice
as new members of our great city.
And in Spanish, I'll briefly repeat that.
Al
Grande this.
I also like to say, uh, I added in a little bit more
around supporting their efforts, uh, to become, uh,
to receive work permits.
And the fact is, we know that the vast majority
of the migrants that have come to this city are, have come
through, uh, legal means,
and they have come through our asylum program.
That is a fact that folks need to recognize.
Um, you know, this is a very nuanced
and difficult situation.
I think that between our governor, our mayor,
all the folks here present our chair, I think
folks are trying to figure this out.
Um, we now have a federal issue
that is at the doorsteps of our great city.
And the fact is, let's be honest, folks, due
to climate change, due
to the climate crisis we're experiencing throughout the
world, this is something we're gonna have to deal with from,
um, for the very future.
Not just in the short term here in our great
city, but in the long term.
Let's also recognize the fact that countries like Italy
and Japan, their economies are going,
um, are going to be negatively impacted
by their birth rates, by the age,
uh, structure in their countries.
And the fact is, is that migrants
to our country are a net benefit.
We need to start, stop thinking about this
as a migrant crisis
and as a migrant opportunity
for our great country and our great city.
Um, so I wanted to start it off with this.
I wanted to thank you all.
We've had community meetings in our community, um,
where you all have been present.
I thank you for that. They have not been easy.
Uh, maybe mine was, uh, the less, the, the,
the the most easy, if you will.
Uh, but it was still challenging
because this is a great challenge.
Um, the way in which we are receiving migrants in our
country, in our city
is very problematic.
Let's underscore the fact that we have
governors in the South Republican governors who are
creating, um, this issue for us.
They are not communicating order, please.
So I also challenge Thank you.
And I love the comments from my, from my brother earlier.
We love everyone, even if they disagree with us.
We love you too. The fact is, I do have a couple
of questions regarding our operations
and ar around how we are operating, uh, moving forward.
Um, and I, you know, I I,
before I begin with those questions,
I also wanna state the following.
We have nonprofits
and mutual aid volunteers who are really doing God's work.
And I thank them every day. I thank them.
I go to sleep thanking them
and thinking of them for the hard work.
They were there at the police stations on day one
when my office got there on day two.
I will always remember that. Mm-Hmm.
And I thank them, uh, for those efforts.
Um, to that extent, I just wanna underscore where we're at.
Um, I do believe
that in the last several weeks there has been, uh,
a lull in new arrivals.
Could you articulate that point?
'cause I do wanna know where we're at
and I want the public to be very clear about
where we're at now,
and then I'm, I want to go somewhere from there.
You mean in terms of numbers? Yeah.
So over the last several weeks,
how many buses have we received?
How many new individuals have entered the system?
And let's just say since January 1st
Back, we'll look up the numbers, but I can just say we
have seen a slowdown.
So at the end of December, there were,
and looking back at the intended destination data
that we get from the border, 3000 people said they wanted
to come to Chicago that last week of December.
And we saw a spike in the number of folks that arrived.
Since then, the numbers have gone down steadily where, um,
we have been able to,
to place people in shelter pretty readily up
until this point, which is why we don't have anyone
at the landing zone right now.
Um, the, we don't know what accounts for that.
Partly it could be the weather that people are, you know,
choosing not to come this way,
or it's also that the state of Texas has sent fewer buses.
So they're rerouting their buses for different reasons.
We don't have the full story for why,
but the numbers have been dropping in this last month.
I think you have specific,
And I think what we've seen from the analysis is we were
getting about 1200 people per week in October.
Yeah. That dropped down
to about 800 people per week in December.
Mm-Hmm. I have not seen the projections for January,
but it is much less
because as of last night we were below 14,000,
and just two weeks ago we were going close
to 15,002 people in beds.
The only hard number I've got right now is 215 buses have
arrived in suburban municipalities going back to,
uh, December 1st.
I, I can tell you just anecdotally that it was
around the time that our windshield advisory
and windchill warning started several weeks ago.
That that's when we really started seeing the start
of this current lull.
I, over the last week,
I think we've received buses two of the seven days.
Um, so it's, it's relatively quiet right now.
So I I also now wanna look forward. Mm-Hmm.
And are there any projections moving forward about, um,
the quantity of individuals who could potentially come?
I, I know this may be a guessing game,
but we do know how many people are approaching the border
and how many people are there,
what are the expectations kind of moving forward?
I can share that we've been doing some projections work
with our own office of budget and with the state and county
and looking to the future, what that might look like.
Um, and the projections are, like, in this period,
we're thinking about 800 people, um, a week.
And that's based on the historical data.
We know that as the weather warms up
and we get closer to summer, those numbers might go up
as high as 1200 a week again.
And so we're looking at tho those projections to see
what number of beds are really needed.
And if we're able to meet that need,
which we might not be able to meet a full need,
there might be a, a bed gap.
And that's part of our collaboration with the state
and the county to potentially have beds available in other
parts, not just in Chicago,
Let's say it. Now. The
fact is, we know the DNC's coming.
We know that there's, uh, people are being used
as political ploys and we gotta be ready for that.
Um, the, the, the, the last thing I'd say is, um,
I'm very proud to have New Life Church in my ward,
my neighbors who are now operating on a citywide level,
I should say countywide as far as, um, um,
placing our our newest neighbors
into more permanent housing.
Um, how has that effort through
with Catholic Charities finding these places, new life,
placing them, how is that effort ramped up?
And where are we at now? Where were we in in the summer
fall, and where are we at now with, uh, yeah.
Of lack of a better way of, uh,
out migrating into more permanent housing? So
Overall, since last July,
11,500 people have been resettled to housing
through the resettlement program with the state,
about 4,100 people have out migrated
through Catholic charities.
Um, good news is Catholic Charities
and ICER are now in all of our shelters
where people are have, are resettlement eligible.
That just happened last week.
Um, and we are meeting with them on a regular basis.
Danny, is there anything you wanna add to that?
Um, yeah, I think the only thing I'll add is just
to reemphasize that Catholic Charities, um,
and their support for the majority of the mission
or the resettlement program was only available at 14
of the current 28 shelters.
Um, as of two weeks ago.
Catholic Charities is now present at all shelters.
So their housing case managers
are at the shelter four days out of the week ensuring
that they're connecting with anyone
who is rental assistance eligible to, uh, find, uh,
uh, appropriate rental units, engage landlords.
'cause obviously that's a big effort, is engaging landlords
and, and getting them to, uh, sign leases
and be participants as part of the program. To
Be clear though, I do wanna know numbers, you know,
where we were at weekly Yeah.
And out migration and where we're at now,
We can have DOH provide that
because DOH is managing that program.
So we can have them provide that through the chair.
The chair. Mm-Hmm. Okay. That was,
But I do wanna add that, you know, if we go back
to September when we, the city shared our five priorities,
one of them was to accelerate movement
through the shelter system
because this is congregate shelter, it's not designed
as long-term permanent housing.
So we knew that to do that acceleration,
the state would have to ramp up the support to have, um,
Catholic Charities and New Life
and the ICER organizations, the welcom,
Illinois Welcoming Centers be present in all the shelters.
They did add more money to that.
It just, it took a while for that capacity to build up.
So just, you know, and every time they've added
and people have been able to staff up,
we see a bump in a movement in people
being able to move out.
But as Danny said, it wasn't until just last week
that there's now, um, this kind
of support in every single one of the shelters.
Our shelters grew at a pace that was too fast
for the out migration support to be able to keep up with,
but we are now seeing significant mo Yeah, I think it's,
it's moved more quickly in terms
of helping people find apartments.
One thing to note though is that currently of the population
that's in the shelters, half are eligible
for state rental assistance.
The other half are no longer bro eligible for that.
So we have about 7,500 people
and that number will grow, that are not eligible
for state rental assistance
because the dollars for that rental assistance, um,
are fixed and, and are,
there's no plan at this point to expand them.
Yeah. And I, I've, I've heard challenges anecdotally
around, um, folks that have been out my,
who are now in more permanent housing, if you will,
with quotations and some of those conditions, um,
and the issues potentially at that point.
Um, do we have data on any of those issues, um,
or under are
or are, are we, is there any support levels at that point?
Well, that's really tracked by the state
because that is their, that is their provider.
So that's not a city contract.
Um, if someone has issues with their housing,
they're encouraged to go back
to their case manager at Catholic Charities.
Number one. Also, the Department
of Housing has legal services that is available
to any tenant that has housing issues.
But that is really, that relationship
with Catholic Charities on housing is
managed by the state of Illinois.
Nasty, I'd like to say over Thanksgiving break,
Chicago Bears of all people came to my local Salvation Army
and, uh, DJ Moore, the pro who should be the Pro Bowl,
uh, wide receiver of the Bears.
But he's, you know, he's on the
outside looking in right now.
Uh, he was there and, uh, the, the, the executive director
of the Salvation Army gave me a tour of the space.
And I went into the back
and, um, I saw a woman
who was volunteering at the Salvation Army again,
Thanksgiving dinner.
They were providing for some
of the migrants in the neighborhood.
And I saw a woman who looked eerily familiar to me,
and she came up to me and gave me a hug
and said, thank you so much for everything you've done.
You remember me? I was one of the first migrants, uh,
in May at Petrowski Park.
And at this point, several weeks later,
she's living in the town of Cicero, doing well, volunteering
to support the next wave of migrants.
This is who these migrants are. They're looking for work.
They're looking to be an integral part
of our society and to build us up.
And I can't think of a better way of thinking about this
as the migrant opportunity versus the crisis.
LA
thank you very much. Thank
You very much.
Order Next, uh, up, uh, wo Manhattan. Thank
You Chair.
Um, thank you guys for the presentations
and, uh, I'll echo, um, uh, alderman Rodriguez's, uh,
thanks also to our mutual aid, uh, volunteers, um,
for everything that you guys are doing
and helping to hold us accountable as well.
Um, uh, you actually answered one of my questions already.
B um, and looking at kind of like the November 17th and
after population, so 7,500 people in growing
and just, you know, for the record, I know those are folks
who aren't currently eligible for any
of the state housing assistance.
Um, I'm wondering if you have similar numbers on folks
who are not eligible for expedited work permits.
So like folks who arrived after July 31st,
and if not on hand through the chair.
I'm gonna let BJ BJ's actually gonna take this one.
Bj, nice to see you in person. Great
To see you too. All the woman.
Um, so for the record, BJ Lo,
program manager at DFSS, uh, what we saw,
I think the numbers that the commissioner, uh, reported out
during the presentation during phase one of the a
of the application workshop process, we saw
that approximately 15 to 20%
of residents in shelter were eligible for either TPS or EAD.
And the further along that we move,
the less folks in shelter we're gonna have
that are TPS eligible because that, that was a fixed date
and, and folks are moving on from shelter.
So what, what, we don't know what
that future number is gonna look like,
but we know that it's going to be less than what we saw
for through phase one.
Um, that's, that's the best estimate that we have right now.
It could be as low as 10%, um,
but there's, there's no projection as far as
what it's gonna look like once we have the majority
of TPS eligible folks out of the shelter.
Yeah. Okay. And
The Resurrection Project, um, is leading the work
with the state on those TPS clinics,
and they would have probably clearer numbers.
She has shared recently that the number is
a lot lower than we thought.
And so the work to really expand work authorization
for this group as well
as other non-citizens is critical at the state level.
Or again, looking at a possibility
of a state authorized temporary work authorization.
Okay. Um, thank you para both for that.
So, given, given these facts mm-Hmm.
Um, I know that, um, the mayor,
you guys had extended right, like this 60 day period
that was gonna be February 1st to March.
Um, I know so much of right,
especially these first two waves
of 60 day periods was really based on, you know,
some assumptions related to
how many people would be eligible for, um,
like housing assistance through the state
and how many people would be eligible for Right.
Uh, expedited work permit processing.
Um, I'm really concerned knowing that, hey, all right,
these numbers haven't been quite what we expected.
And, um, you know, even the housing assistance,
I know it was halved, right?
Like it went from six months to three months for,
for some people even mid-process.
Um, like I've heard from residents in my community, like,
Hey, I started on this and told me six months,
but now they're only giving me three months.
So I know that's where we're at.
Um, what are we thinking
as we are revisiting the 60 day policy?
Do we need 90 days, right? Do we need 120 days?
So like, how are you guys thinking about that tension of,
you know, temporary shelter, we need to have people move
through, but now we are going to be at a dearth
of the limited resources that we already had
to support, right?
That independence.
And so just if you can share a bit of your thinking
and things that we can do, um, that would be helpful. Yeah,
I think the site, the assessments will be really critical
for those checkpoints as we talk to people about
what do you wanna do, um,
in thinking about is it out migration,
that's gonna be really what we're pushing, you know,
over the next several months, just
because we're trying
to live within the budget that we've been given.
Um, so out migration, um,
thinking about do people have friends
and family that they can,
that can support them locally, right?
Like how are they connecting, um,
to other areas we know people are working, right?
So it's also about like, how are you saving
and what does that look like?
And anyone who's eligible, we really are gonna push them
through the, um, work permit clinics and those legal clinics
because we have to make sure and prepare for the summer
because we don't know what the future brings.
And I think we have to take this moment, this lull
to make sure that we're able to move people along
as effectively as we can.
I, I do wanna say that there's been significant work to
look closely at how to operationalize this 60 day policy.
It might not appear that way in the media
or, you know, the, the way that things are raised,
but especially in the last several weeks,
teams have been meeting every day in the morning
and in the afternoon looking at all
of the possible implications, looking at those extensions,
what it would take to do that,
and better understanding the, the population
that is residing in the shelters.
Um, as we do the work with the state
and the county, we're also looking at those factors,
thinking about how we collectively support, um,
this, this group that may be growing in number
to keep people as sheltered as possible,
but also help them on their way.
The challenge of, of the, the fact
that we have a growing number that may not be eligible
for work anymore and is not eligible for rental assistance
is something that we're looking at.
I think if we currently we have fixed, um,
resources, the state has their budget,
the county has theirs, Chicago has ours,
and we're all trying to operate within that.
If we wanted to meet the gap,
and it might be something that we move towards,
it will take looking at that differently.
And I think also the continued advocacy at the federal level
for the dollars that might be coming in, if there is, um,
budget approved in that supplemental budget
for the border crisis, which is
how they're talking about it at the federal level,
we've been advocating for at least 5 billion of that to go,
um, to the effort as a whole
and some of those dollars to come to Chicago
and other interior cities for resettlement.
We've also been advocating with our federal delegation
and with others, um, at the federal government
to support the school system to support transportation, um,
public health, so other systems that Chicago has, um,
in operation that by, by default are serving, you know,
uh, new arrivals as well.
So find other ways
to bring dollars federal dollars into the city.
Um, and then finally, I would say that this is a moment
like when Chicago launched the,
the settlement house movement, the Jane with Jane Adams,
you know, initiating that this is a new moment in our
history where philanthropy, faith institutions,
mutual aid nonprofits are stepping up in different ways.
And I think that, that we're gonna see a need for more of
that support to compliment what government is able to do.
I don't think that government will be able
to solve the whole, the whole, um, need that is there,
but people are already jumping in
and we can see more of that is necessary, especially from,
um, philanthropy and corporate philanthropy
to support the groups that are doing the work beyond
what the, the government is able to provide.
Thank you for that. Um, shifting topics a little bit, um,
I just wanna echo it was helpful to see some
of the broad overview of the grievance information.
Um, just practically from a aldermanic perspective,
that's one of the things that I would like
more conversation on.
So I've had good experiences working with, uh,
the DFSS coordinators, right?
Like, and you know, being able
to follow up on things that come our way.
Um, especially since you guys have kind of, you know,
expanded and, and made robust your tracking system,
I'm wondering if we could work with your coordinators
to set up some kind of regular reporting or check-in,
Let's talk about what that looks like
and how we share the data.
Because I know several elders have asked for that.
So I just wanna make sure that we're being consistent
and how we're sharing information, but we don't have Yeah.
Any problems. And I think I'd prefer probably it to go
through the PMs, um, just because we're, Maura
and I are looking at that
because we have the tracker to look at it,
and then we're sitting with the PMs about
what are the trends that you're seeing Mm-Hmm.
Um, and I think that's helpful 'cause for us,
because then we can say, okay,
we're seeing the same complaints about X,
let's dive into this.
Um, and the, or we're saying we're seeing a high number
of complaints at a particular shelter,
but it's not the highest population Mm-Hmm.
What's going on? And so we'll be, we can definitely do that.
Yeah. It just 'cause right, like, um,
we have like our kind of ground level thing.
You guys are getting info at a different level. Mm-Hmm.
So it would be good to marry them.
Um, you know, like we are getting, uh,
what I feel like are pretty common complaints
that I like, hear from other places.
Um, and, you know, one of them is around, uh, a lot of it is
around treatment, um, in my ward
and one shelter in particular.
Um, the main kind
of shelter manager is the subject of much concern.
Um, and so like, I'd like to dig into that, but Right.
Like, all I have are kind
of anecdotal stories from when I meet
with constituents versus like, Hey,
what's actually coming in through the grievance report?
And a lot of them are, you know, their experiences
and it's, it's qualitative information.
So I would like to have a better assessment of that so
that we can do something about it if need be.
Which brings me to my last question, which is,
what happens when and, and what is the process?
So it's helpful to see,
but like, how do we remove a favorite staffer?
'cause I, I hear about these check-ins
with favorite corporate,
but like, what's their structure reporting looking like?
Like here, based in Chicago.
And so maybe let's take a step back
because these are not city staff, whereas we can remove
and we have to be careful, uh, to not break any laws
that will put the city of Chicago in a place
where we will get sued.
Right? And so these are favorite contract contractors.
And so when they see that they, there,
there has been a series of incidents
for a particular staffer, they will go forward
and make the recommendation to terminate their staff.
Right? What we're doing is we're saying we're seeing this
maybe Danny, bj, Natalia, they have come across someone
that has behavior that is not becoming of someone
that we would want on our team.
They take those measures
and they don't need our permission to do it.
They can take them directly. Mm-Hmm.
Um, and I think we are getting to a point, especially
as we transition from favorite managing to,
it'll be CBO operated Mm-Hmm.
We are making sure that we're moving towards a model
where the onus is on the provider to do those decisions
where we use the grievance process
to inform how they are made.
And I'll just say maybe we can
have more discussion around that.
'cause I understand the, the need for the city
to not hold that responsibility.
And also I feel, uh, some type
of way about giving up that power.
Yeah. Or because that is also responsibility,
like in a, in a certain way.
I know in the favorite structure we're their client,
we should be able to remove whoever we want.
Right? Like, we're the client.
And that does happen. And that does
happen when we say that.
And the thinking about the CBO kind of structure, um,
I know you've got obviously good experience with this
and how we run our other things,
but, um, we just really would need a very solid,
um, right.
Like grievance process. 'cause like, one
of the things I hear from constituents as well is like,
they don't get copies of their stuff.
It's, it's still not, it's still kind of confusing to them.
There's a lot of confusion and there's
A lot of, I'll say Alder women, the mission is,
is bold is big, right?
And it's evolving every day.
And sometimes I think favorite staff,
and I'm not standing up for them, they get blamed
because they're the first person that the person sees.
But it could be a, there's a supply order
that hasn't been put through and it's not their fault.
That favorite is also wanting the supplies just as much.
It's also, we're very cognizant
as we move into implementing the 60 day policy,
that we will probably see more, um,
grievances against favorite staff
because they're the ones who at the end of the day have
to leave, give that out.
And if you're the person that's always coming with the,
you know, curfew was at 11, you have to eat in the kitchen.
That can also be hard as well.
Sure. Sure. Um, uh,
let's see if I had any more questions.
I think that was it. This was very helpful.
Thank you guys for all of your work and thank you Chair.
Thank you very much. Um,
I've got a couple follow up on some
of it if members don't have, uh, questions.
Um, so I know, uh, a couple of things.
So one, I definitely, we've had conversations about trying
to talk to favorite because kind of
to Ottawa Manhattan's point, I understand that they're the,
they hire their own employees.
So they have their own account accountability
measures for their own employees.
But because we ultimately contract to them,
having some level of reporting on what
that looks like from them, I think is a,
a requirement not only for favor,
but for like the nonprofits that'll handle it.
And so as we have those conversations, we'll bring in some
of the members as well to ask questions there.
Um, I, I've got a question, um, uh, on Shelter.
So I wanna appreciate talk of what it looks like
with the current model of Shelter for the new arrivals.
But if you could speak briefly on the situation for shelter,
for folks who are not new arrivals.
Right. We've seen kind of this expansion and growth,
but we know that before this crisis opportunity,
however, it's, it's worded, there wasn't enough
for the existing population prior.
And so what's that looking like?
It's kind of a quick check in. So
We just conducted the 2024 point in time count.
We should have, you know, an idea of
what those numbers look like in the next couple weeks.
But I'll take you back 'cause I'll use the 2023 numbers.
So last year when we did the point in time count,
we had 3000 individuals.
It was about 4,000 individuals in shelter.
No, 3000 people in shelter.
15 a thousand to 1500 people were living on the streets.
They were unsheltered.
And then on top of that 4,500,
we had another 2000 new arrivals that were in shelter.
So we know when we do the po, the pick count,
when the numbers come out, there will be over 14,000 people
that will be new arrivals with some
of the a RP dollars that we've leveraged.
One of the things that we're doing is working with, um,
especially some alters in this room
to open new shelters, right?
And so we have shelter acquisition dollars,
and so next year we'll start, we should start to see some of
that work start to come online to bring on,
really the goal is to get back to
where we were pre pandemic levels, where we were at, uh,
close to 3,100 beds.
Like that's the, the ideal goal.
Right now, we're probably a little bit under 2,900.
We're just at 2,900 this past winter.
We were able to receive emergency funding from, um,
IDHS, the Illinois Department of Human Services.
And that allowed us to bring on approximately
300 shelter beds.
And so they're at a couple, um,
salvation Army has opened up the
Freedom Center for their gym.
We are leveraging the Tremont, um, hotel on Chicago Avenue.
And so that has allowed us to add capacity,
but I think we will continue to work to measures to do that.
We also receive shelter, uh, improvement dollars
to improve conditions at shelters.
So if you've been to a couple,
you may see like there's no kitchen, right?
People eat standing up.
And so we want
to go transition from large congregate spaces,
what we learned in the pandemic to semicon, semi congregate
and private rooms
and add additional bathrooms, make buildings accessible.
So those are some of the things we're doing.
But I would just say the nonprofit community
has really been decimated.
You know, when we put out the all call for,
we've got this additional money who can, you know, add beds.
It wasn't everybody.
And so it's not just money, but it's also resources
and capacity in order to build and bring up the beds.
You know, I will also just remind us that, um,
what's the shelter on Canal?
PGM, the Pacific Garden Mission Pre Pandemic, they were at,
you know, over a thousand people.
They were a many city when you'd go in that building.
They have also brought that down.
Now they don't take city funding,
but their capacity also supports us
because the more beds they have,
they are our overflow when we can't, you know,
shelter additional people.
So I think it's just, it's hard for the nonprofit community,
especially the homeless system.
Um, the grants we have don't typically do, you know,
they're looking for pay raises, right?
These are team members who are working 24 7 with people
with extreme issues, right?
And so being able, people are burnt out.
And so it's the paying fell rage, you know, as part
of the Chicago Continuum Care, we talk about like,
how do we raise, you know, dollars, um,
how do we get more infusion for capital for their supports?
And then how do we just build
this practice in this community?
No, I, I appreciate that.
And I wanna make sure that as we have the conversation
and looking through it, uh, unifying,
which is a large process to take, uh, to endeavor,
really an understanding of what's happening for the shelter,
for our folks who are not new arrivals,
is something we don't wanna lose any sight on
and make sure that that's improving as well.
And so I appreciate that. Um,
We do have, I think, more ahead of comment. Yeah,
I was just gonna say, I think with anytime we're
considering how much shelter we need, just like we do
for new arrivals, we also have to focus on housing as well.
So that's why investing in
rapid rehousing like we did in the 2024 budget needs
to continue and just continuing to expand PSH that will,
that it's not just shelter, it's also housing.
Thank you. And just a reminder that we do have the,
the position for the new chief homelessness officer.
There are, you know, it's still underway in terms
of identifying, uh,
or finalizing who the candidate will be, but that will come.
And so I think that's a, that's a huge investment
in helping us with this work.
So do we have a timeline for that?
'cause I know we've heard
for some time now about the chief Homelessness officer.
Do we know when they'll be on board
when the hiring is occurring?
I believe people are being interviewed as we speak,
or there are candidates, but I
don't know what the final timeline
Is here. Okay. And then
I, I, I definitely appreciate,
and as we kind of get the, the reporting back on,
like the timeline, exactly your piece that, I know we think
of it as shelter, but it is really
also the permanent housing.
I know in, in the 40th they're doing bridge housing
that's non congregate, right?
So I think there's ways to kind of paint the picture
of the whole landscape so we all have a better understanding
of what needs support
and how to, how to create a system that we can all be proud
of for everybody who needs it.
And I think Chair, that's the point.
You have to create a through path, right?
It has to be able, as people come in,
you've gotta be able to shelter them.
Shelter is meant to be temporary
and not long-term move people from shelter to housing
and then to permanent housing
and give people the supports that they need
to live on independently on their
Own. Absolutely. So I, I've
got two groups that have reached out
to us, um, as it relates to, um, back
to like the new arrival shelter.
And, um, one is like the Haitian and African diaspora
because, um, having, you know, culturally sensitive, uh,
congruent language support systems for that in a way.
Um, want to hear what progress is on that.
And the second is L-G-B-T-Q shelter.
We've had folks like equality annoying.
Other ones really raise up
that there are folks within the shelter that similarly, um,
feel like they can't be their authentic selves
based on the situation.
And so, wanted to know if there's any progress on the
L-G-B-T-Q shelter and like what approach
for Haitian African diaspora, um, migrants. So we've been
Meeting with United African Organization.
Uh, we met with, um, judge Lionel Baptiste, uh,
and several others, I believe the Haitian Museum
and a couple other organizations,
and really have folded them into the work
we're doing with icer.
So ICER is the state funded case manager to make sure
that they're able to support.
Danny, do you wanna give any updates
on where we are with that?
Icer, ICER and United African org? And
If you could introduce yourself
again just for folks for record.
Uh, Danny Castaneda, director for New Arrivals with DFSS.
Um, so United African Organization is one of the new icer,
CBO case Management partners.
Um, so we actually shared data where, um, sort
of the black migrants are located throughout the new
arrival shelter system.
Um, and we shared the sort of top four shelters where
that population is.
Um, there's three family shelters where we have the majority
and then one single shelter.
And so United African Organization is choosing one family
shelter and the single shelter to sort of, uh, jump between
to make sure that they have, um,
they're already serving those groups,
but now they'll have access to them within the shelter,
which I think is gonna be both supportive of the residents
and the staff who are supporting them
on sort of a day to day.
Um, and we've also been working with Favorite to recruit,
um, staff that speak, uh, Haitian Creole, um,
and French so that, again, they have that language access,
um, available onsite every day,
not just when the ICER CBOs, um, are present.
I, I have an update related to that.
So the, the Im r team met with, um,
the associate, I think director
of the Illinois Welcoming Centers at DHS
and convened several of the Haitian organizations
that are interested in, in getting more support.
And where we landed with them is that, um, they will
be looking at how they can either add a position
or additional funding and staffing to UAO
or support another organization that can serve
as a welcoming center type organization, specifically for
the Haitian community
and potentially for other people coming from, you know,
other countries in the African diaspora.
So I think at a support level, beyond Chicago,
we've activated some state
resources that weren't there before.
We also connected them directly to Catholic Charities
to have more direct support in that way.
And then finally, we do have a position that we should be,
um, posting soon that will be detailed
to us from the City Colleges of Chicago
to work specifically, um, with this community.
Thank you. So I, I, again, I'll, I'll follow up as well
for the L-G-B-T-Q shelter, we've talked to folks like, um,
brave Space Alliance that actually have like buildings
that are also looking to figure out partnership to kind
of create that model.
Are there any updates, um, specifically on, on that front
for, for LG BT Q folk?
Great. Uh, yeah, I think what I can say, I would love
to have a dedicated shelter for, um,
the LGBTQIA plus community.
Uh, I think we've, we've been making strides
and sort of the lower hanging fruit.
How can we make the intake process more welcoming
for a resident to disclose their sexual orientation
or gender identity,
especially when it's not necessarily culturally accepted,
um, in their countries of origin.
Uh, we're adding questions to our intake form,
establishing a process so that when someone does disclose,
uh, their gender identity
or their sexual orientation, like what comes
after they disclose what we do with that information,
how we can make our spaces more welcoming in terms
of signage and things of that nature.
Um, so it's certainly something
that is really important to us.
And so I, I think we're making
strides in the right direction.
Okay. Uh, And we also, um, deputy,
I would also like to add to what Danny said,
that we are having conversations around,
around training for staff.
Um, and we have been convening with the advocates, uh,
on a monthly basis now,
and we'll have those meetings, um, moving forward.
Okay. So we, we definitely like to,
as like literally this past week, I've had a conversation
with some folks who have like space
and want to figure that out.
So we wanna follow up with you all.
So to your point, as you're getting the intake
and information, like what's the next step in
that kind of like process?
Um, so thank you for that. And then lastly,
the question I have is related, uh,
to the volunteer program.
So we had a lot of folks who were doing mutual aid work when
it pertained to the police stations
who were actively reaching out, finding ways to integrate,
uh, or be able to support, um, you know, conversations
around, like know your rights for some of the folks there,
know your community and
what the rules are here now that you're here.
So what, what are updates as it relates to kind
of the volunteer integration. Um,
Yes, of course. So I'll
just read over a couple of points
that we've been sharing in our community
briefings for the past couple of weeks.
Uh, we did, uh, formalize a partnership between
between Chicago Cares and the City of Chicago.
This will be under the New Neighbors Campaign.
Uh, we'll coordinate relief efforts between volunteers,
mutual aid groups, elder manic offices
and partner organizations serving those Seeking Asylum.
Um, Chicago Cares is a well established organization
that has been doing this kind of work.
And in addition to Chicago Cares, we're also,
we'll also be working with the Refugee Coalition.
Uh, part of the model will be to, uh, create a pathway
for individual people to apply to become a volunteer
and fulfill some of those responsibilities that,
or in those buckets that I just named.
Additionally, we know that there are organizations
that also want to volunteer,
and so that will be also the work that we'll be doing, both
with Chicago Cares and the Refugee Coalition.
I think both of these partners bring strengths to the work,
and we definitely wanna lean on them
because we don't have to create something new
where work has already been done.
We just need to kind of jump off, uh, that bandwagon.
Additionally, uh, the city of our office, um, awarded, uh,
or AmeriCorps awarded, uh, the City
of Chicago eight Vista positions
to support this specific mission.
Three Vista members will be housed at the mayor's office
and Collaborate, will collaborate
with volunteer based organizations
to promote voluntary voluntarism, so Chicago Cares
and the Chicago Refugee Coalition.
And then four Vista members will support the DF S's new
arrival, sheltering, uh, team.
And then one Vista member who is designated, uh,
as a Vista leader, will also be working in this effort.
So this is incoming.
There will be a lot of coordination where, uh, working
through the buckets of, uh,
or the areas of work that we'll be focusing on.
And then additionally, there are other volunteer
opportunities outside of what we're working on.
Um, one of those opportunities is
what the Resurrection Project has.
As you know, they have been hosting their workshops
and are always looking for volunteers.
So this is information that is
also available on our website. Awesome.
If you could do a favor, do the chair
and kind of give some of that update,
whether it's in written out or like a slide.
Obviously, I really like all the
information I'm provided, so similar.
So the alders kind of have a sense, um,
really greatly appreciated, uh, uh, uh, Alderwoman Lee.
Thank you Chairman. And I apologize
for joining the meeting late of, ahead of time.
If I'm asking a redundant question, just forgive me.
Um, thank you all for being here,
and thanks for, I'll just say at the outset all
of the hard work that I know that you all are doing.
Um, a couple of questions.
Um, first I'll start
with just shelter Condi conditions in general.
I know there's, you know, obviously there's been a lot
of conversation about this.
Can you talk a little bit about some of the work
that's been done, um, since in, in particular,
I'm interested in the, the Halstead, um, shelter, uh,
just next door to my ward.
Yep. So, at the Health, at
The Halsted Shelter, um, we have added a heat
and smoke detection
system at the Halsted shelter.
We have added a heat
and smoke detection system
with exter external monitoring throughout.
So the team gets reads, even if they're not on site.
Um, it has a 17 point remote tempera temperature monitoring,
and it has redundant slash supplemental HVAC
units for the heat system.
Um, in addition, they've made sure
that there's carbon monoxide detection
with external monitoring, um,
especially near the combustion sources.
There's hand sanitation stations installed throughout HIPAA
filtration are, is in key areas.
Um, we do it three times a day.
The bathrooms are deep cleaned.
We've installed filter water bottle filtering
stations throughout the shelter.
Added an emergency lighting
and exit signage
with battery backups throughout the building.
The emer emergent, there's an onsite laundry facility
with 24 access that has 12 washers and 14 dryers,
and there's a heated e entrance
and exit vestibule so
that cold air doesn't come in when people
walk into the building.
In terms of bedbugs, we work with
and follow C-D-P-X-C-D-P-H infection prevention guidelines,
including mitigation strategies
and infested infestation management and monitoring.
Same thing goes for lice.
We work with, um, their mitigation team
for lice in community congregate settings.
Uh, there's the, the pest control
specifically at fish shelter is with the,
um, property manager.
They're on site at least once a week.
Um, and then, like I said, we work
to make sure we're controlling the temperature.
CDPH has really stepped up their infection
controls under the lead of Dr.
ega. So the varicella reports have come down.
Um, and then we work with all city departments, you know,
uh, if they have questions about operations, we're happy
to do walkthroughs and talk to them about that.
I know, I don't think anybody from CDPH is here.
So this next question is just sort
of more about just care in general.
I know I, I was on the briefing, um, last time, uh, when Dr.
IgE was talking about all the new things that CDPH is doing,
and I'm glad to hear that, you know,
from an infectious disease control perspective, uh, we're,
we're paying attention
and like doing the things that we need to do.
I think little things, right?
I'm a mom, when my kid was five, if he had a fever,
I could go grab some baby Tylenol out of the,
outta the medicine cabinet and I could give it to him
and I could wait to see if the, the fever came down.
Um, are there medications
that are like over the counter medications that are
provided in these shelters for like little things?
Um, and, and if not, like, what's the process
for someone actually needs care?
Um, you know, during non-business hours,
let's say when they could go to a clinic, um,
I'm not familiar at this point.
If there is somebody that's on site for how long they are,
You wanna talk about how long the LCLs are on site
a week coordinating agency.
So we have lead coordinating agencies that are on site, um,
and they're able to provide
and connect people to medical care.
Um, if people need supplies, you know,
that they're responsible
for connecting individuals to prescriptions.
But the prescriptions are actually coming from the LCLs.
Our staff, the staff are not dispersing medications. Okay.
I would add though that Dr. IGAs team has looked more
comprehensively at our approach
to medical care in partnership with Cook County Health.
They've been the primary provider,
and then other, um, groups have stepped up on their own.
And as well as, um, some federally qualified health centers
that want to do work in the shelter system.
And they've really crafted an approach
that is both public health and public healthcare,
or healthcare specifically.
So we will be seeing some changes
and some advances in
how people are supported in their health, um,
needs throughout the she the shelter system.
That's great. Well, 'cause we're, you know,
we work closely with the ninth district, um,
mutual aid group, and we're tied into those networks.
Um, and, uh, we're still running our free shops,
so we get pretty consistent requests for,
for simple things like Tylenol, ibuprofen, um, you know,
hydration type stuff.
So we're continuing to fill those gaps on a volunteer basis.
Um, I just wanna make sure that, you know,
as we're having these conversations, um, that we consider
how, how we fill those gaps so that they're sort
of more on site if it's at all possible.
I know, look, your staff shouldn't be handing out.
Um, it shouldn't be responsible for meds like that,
but I think creating a, a better avenue instead of having
to go to a volunteer, having the volunteer then go back
to whatever sources they have
or buy had the volunteer buy the medication themselves, um,
we can probably do better.
Um, especially if it's buying things in bulk too.
You know, I, if I go to, if I go to Walgreens
or if I go to CVS and I spend $50 on meds,
the $50 could actually be better spent and we'd buy more.
Um, if we were going through one of the sort
of institutional partnerships.
And I think those are things that Dr.
Ega and her team are looking at of
how do we better improve the medical conditions.
Great. Alderman Citro Lopez has, um, really brought
to the, for forefront some of the needs, specifically at
that Halstead shelter around medical care.
And there've been now regular meetings with the, with CDPH
and other providers to make sure
that we're tackling some of those questions.
Yeah, I think landing on the right
balance is just challenging.
Yeah. And also that shelter is, is large.
There's a large number of people there, so the need, um,
you know, the needs are large as well.
So we see more consistently people requesting the types
of services that you're, that you're, um, noting. Yeah.
Um, so I think I have two, two more questions.
Um, one is around, at, at
that particular shelter, and I, I am most familiar with that
'cause it's closest to my ward.
Um, do we, do, do we have any segregation of spaces
for, um, so it's, it's a two part question.
Is there a place where people who are sick can stay?
So if they're not spreading things around? Right.
So we do have isolation rooms.
That's what the term is. Sorry, what the
Term is. What
is it? 157 isolation rooms.
We have across the shelter system.
So we don't, uh, Danny Castaneda,
we don't have isolation rooms at the Halstead shelter,
but we have, I think it's 341 isolation rooms Oh.
Of 1 57 across the system.
Um, so in any, on any given day, I mean,
a healthy system is a system
that always has isolation space available.
Um, today, that is our reality luckily.
Um, which means that if someone were to test positive
for an infectious disease like Varicella or Covid
or something else, then we can immediately send them, um,
and place them in isolation, um, to prevent, uh,
any unnecessary spread or exposure.
So, just to make sure I heard you correctly, so great,
we've got 341 beds across the system,
but there are none at the largest shelter.
Well, it's also how it's set up.
Remember that is a large congregate setting, Uhhuh.
So when people are in isolation,
we're putting them in rooms, Uhhuh,
and that are, it's our, that's at other locations.
Gotcha. Because you've got the
different buildings that are just open.
There's no place. 'cause you don't wanna put
all sick people in
A room together in one big room.
Right. I got it. So what's the process now,
if someone tests positive for Covid, do we move them
to another shelter where there is Mm-Hmm.
We move them to where there's an isolation room. Okay.
And so then their meals are segregated and
provided directly by the staff. I'm sorry.
Yeah. And I was Maura McCauley,
D-F-S-S-I was just gonna say that this mirrors
how we handle this in our homeless shelter system.
We really developed this process with CDPH support
and guidance during COVID.
And so, CDPH is involved in
identifying when people need isolation
and supporting those moves.
So that's always followed with guidance.
And then they also provide their infection control teams
also provide support to the shelter staff
and residents about how else to take,
take other precautions within the shelters
if they don't have isolation.
Right. Um,
and then I know, uh, a good number of, uh,
the new arrivals arrive pregnant
or get pregnant when they're here
and are delivering new babies.
Um, you know, one case in particular we're familiar
with just in the, in the last week, you know, one
of my staff is connected to a woman who just given birth,
no problems with the birth or anything like that.
Um, and she was surprised that do,
do they release you after a day?
I'm like, yeah, that's pretty common.
If it's a healthy delivery, that that's what's happening.
Um, but the, is there any attention being paid
to like new moms that are coming back with like newborns
and, and, and how we're sort of providing some level
of specific care to their needs?
So CDPH is working closely with new moms, but even
before then, so we have Hope House, which supports,
you know, pregnant moms Mm-Hmm.
In their journey to make sure that we're connecting them
with medical care early on.
Londale Christian Health Center is the partner there,
and so they're supporting that early.
We're also working closely with, um, CDPH
and our healthcare providers to make sure
that we have safe sleeping, uh, bassinets for babies so
that babies aren't sleeping in the cots with mom.
Um, that's really important. And teaching what that means.
And then part of the work that they're doing is just
what does good maternal health look like?
There have been moms that have had, um, complications
with their birth and that have been high risk.
And so being able to, uh, identify those moms, triage them
and make sure that they have birth
plans is really important.
I will say though, good news, uh,
recently at Pietrowski Park,
the shelter staff did deliver a baby.
EMS didn't get there in time.
Baby came and so the staff delivered
the baby and baby was healthy.
It's in that fine print. Right.
And all other duties as needed, um,
for everybody in their job descriptions.
Thank you for clarity on that.
And thank you for a addressing those questions. I lied.
I have just a couple more. Is it Okay, chairman.
Um, I'm gonna switch gears a little bit
to just work permits.
I think we've seen encouraging news around work permits
and the rate at which we're, um, we're we're beginning
to get more people processed.
I think I heard on a briefing, um, I wasn't able
to ask a question at that point.
That, um, the re part
of the reason why we haven't seen more, um, volume, uh,
in terms of, uh, the work permits being in process
or issued is that not
as many people are eligible as we thought.
Can you, and I apologize if this was asked earlier,
but if you wouldn't mind just expounding on
that a little bit, it'd be helpful for me.
It's also in the deck we provided in the brief, so Okay.
When you get a chance, it's page nine and 10. Okay.
But basically when, you know, the analysis was done
by the state, they were looking at models, for example,
for like, you know, more,
more larger shelter systems like New York Mm-Hmm.
And so the thought would be that we would
see a lot more people.
Basically, as we've been holding the clinic since November,
about 15 to 20% of people
who are in shelter are actually eligible.
So to date, 2,888 applications have been submitted.
1000, I think it's 32,
1031 work permits have been received.
Um, and so we're re-imagining what that looks like.
So phase one has just been focusing on people
who are in shelter because we wanted
to make sure we connect them.
If they're not eligible for rental assistance, they can work
and then they can move outta shelter.
Phase two starting in February will start to look more
so at, um, other shelters.
Those who are connected to ACE rap, um,
and that are already in housing.
And then phase three will just look at the broader pace.
Maybe someone was in shelter in 2022
or 2023, they moved out on their own,
but they still don't have a work permit of being able
to fold them into the mix that we're doing as well.
So I think we wanna take advantage
of the partnership we have with us ICS Mm-Hmm.
Um, and make sure that anyone
who was available can go through.
I think the other thing we're seeing is the time it takes
to process an application is longer than we expected.
And so just submitting the application at the clinics,
the us um, the us uh, CIS uh,
team is taking them longer than they anticipated.
So the staffing, how many people we can hold at a clinic,
those are all variables as well.
Does it generally take more than like one visit
to a clinic or to, to complete an application?
I have no idea what that process looks like.
If you can talk to
Hi again. Uh,
BJ Lord DFSS project manager.
So, uh, we generally, generally schedule about 150
to 165 new arrivals to come to a,
an event on any given day.
And what we expect from that is, uh, about 35 to 50,
we'll have to come back the next day.
Uh, out of the, the 165, you know what a 110 or 115
or so, they'll get through the entire process in that,
that full day in just that day.
Um, the rest will get all the way through.
So the, the clinic has phases.
You do a document review, you do applicant, uh,
application preparation,
and then a final review by, uh, uh,
an immigrant, uh, attorney.
A legal attorney. And then, um,
after the final review, they go to U-S-C-I-S
for actual like submission of the documents
and biometrics if they need them.
Uh, what we found at the beginning is
that U-S-C-I-S was kind of, uh, underutilized
for the first couple of hours of the day
because we didn't have anybody that needed
to be seen right away.
Right. They were going through the other phases.
And so we started to over recruit for any given day so
that that overflow could come back.
They get through everything up until U-S-C-I-S
and then the next day they would come back right in the
morning and go directly
to U-S-C-I-S to finish out the process.
So, uh, you know, we, we work
with probably about 165 folks on any given day of those, uh,
maybe 115 to 140 somewhere in there.
Numbers aren't exact,
but, um, are, are making it through the full process,
Uh, just to follow up. If
through the chair we can get tracking kind
of unlike those, I know we've seen some of our colleagues
that do some of like the TPS workshops.
And so we are working with different stakeholders to kind
of get A-A-D-I-Y kit for the different ALS to be able
to partner up and scale those things.
So I think getting some tracking on that would be helpful.
Um, because it's not only the population in the shelters
that that apply, it's also
folks who are not in the shelters.
And I think the more we have that happening across town,
the more we can get that moving,
get more work authorization.
So yeah. Any, anything you can submit
through the chair about like what that progress looks like?
The ones that have been done so far.
'cause I think there's, um, not a full understanding from
members of the council and from the public at large.
Just, uh, what u you know, U-S-C-I-S is doing,
what the state is doing, what the city is doing,
what the alders can do,
and the way they can get us to,
to the best model possible. Thank you. Sorry.
Thank you for that. And your, your head is exactly
where I was going, which is how can we help?
Right. Uh, 165. I know that's a lot to process in one day.
Got a lot of people. I think we can,
you know, we got 50 awards.
We can find some other ways
where we can potentially help contribute to some of that.
Even if it's just pre-work,
helping people make sure their documents are together
before they go to their appointment,
that would certainly speed things up.
Uh, you know, anything that we can do on
that front, please let us know.
The Resurrection Project is leading the work on behalf
of the state, and they are always looking for volunteers.
So I think that's a very clear way.
I think the other though is that not everyone is eligible
and as they said, the numbers are,
are lower than was anticipated.
So people will still be applying for asylum,
which is a much longer process and requires more support.
And there are ways potentially to support
through groups like NIJC
or LAS in terms of asylum applications.
And then just critically is advocacy for, um,
for work authorization and extensions of TPS
and work authorization at the federal level.
Right. Because what we have right now, um, won't be enough.
And anyone who's come into the US through,
through this system
after August 1st is not part of that TPS expansion.
And so they have to take the longer route to get, um,
to get their work authorizations if they're eligible.
And how are most people paying for this?
It's a $500 fee, as I understand it.
Is it do, has the federal government
provided any sort of waivers or anything?
No, many, many across the country have advocated
for a flat, um, fee waiver, and they haven't done that.
But I know that through the clinics they're applying in bulk
for fee waivers and I am assuming
that most have been processed. Right. And they go through.
Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
So at the clinics, uh, our, the folks
who are residing in shelter,
they have a shelter residency letter,
um, evidence of homelessness.
And so the, the fee waivers are, uh, the fee is waived
for anybody who's been applying at these large, uh,
large shelter or these large workshop operations.
Um, I believe that TRP, the Resurrection Project who,
whom be mentioned, uh, is looking into how to continue
to ensure fee waivers can be accepted by U-S-C-I-S
for additional new arrivals who come to, uh, these
workshops moving forward.
And just to add a couple of things, um,
we're right now ending kind of phase one.
So most folks who are in shelter, uh, have had a chance
to be screened by their shelter case managers
and have had an opportunity to go to
an event actually at the, at the end of this week, uh,
all shelters will have have cycled through every opportunity
that we've given them to go to an event, which means most,
but other than the new arrival,
the newest arrivals in the shelter, uh, who need
to still be screened, you know, we've kind
of ended phase one
and we're, we're gonna start in mid-February into phase two,
uh, which includes folks in ACE wrap housing.
And I think
what we're gonna see there is there's an opportunity gap
with folks who might be TPS eligible Mm-Hmm.
Who entered the shelter system earlier on in our eligible
to, for TPS, but exited the shelter system
before having an opportunity to go to one of these events
because they only started in November.
Um, one of the things that TRP has mentioned,
and I, I've worked with, uh, at least one other alder, uh,
Alder Clay, uh, to, uh,
to create some ways where alders can actually help
with these larger events.
And what that might look like is
creating events in your wards where folks can, uh,
new arrivals who aren't in shelter mm-Hmm.
Can go through that document review
and that application preparation phase because the, the TPS
and EAD clinics, they're gonna continue at least
until March, April, maybe even May.
Um, and so the more that the new arrivals
who are not in shelter can be helped
to get their documents together
and their applications prepared,
and then they just have to go to the event
for a final review
or U-S-C-I-S submission
that the more folks we can do in a day
or the more, you know, the more folks that we can, we can,
uh, process through the, the application process in a day.
Thank you for that. That was gonna be one
of my questions for the earlier. I'm sorry. I think Ray
Wants to jump in. Oh, sorry,
Ray. Yes. Um,
thank you.
I appreciate, um, that we're able
to take a deeper dive into a lot of the work
that the DFSS has, uh, team has been doing with U-S-C-I-S.
I also just wanna name for the record
that this is information
that we do include in our aldermanic briefing along
with information about the volunteer coordination process
that we have, um, and updates.
So I, again, I appreciate that we're taking a deeper dive
and maybe this merits a conversation with, uh, the IGA team
to ensure that you are, we're capturing all that information
so that that is, uh, released to all of you,
like we do every Friday.
Um, but I, I think part of what does,
what it doesn't get captured in the elder manic briefing is,
uh, the like, step by step.
Uh, but we have been providing the numbers and the data, um,
but we'll just check in with, uh, IGA to make sure
that we have the most up to date numbers
for this item and moving
Forward. Thanks for that, Ray.
And I do appreciate
the weekly briefings.
Um, and I know a lot of work gets put into that,
but we do miss op opportunities
and we have hearings like this.
It's great to be able to dig into it, um, a little bit more.
And I appreciate that you went there about the people
that were in shelters earlier, um,
and are no longer in shelters.
So that whole point about if they're in a shelter, they,
they qualify as being unhoused and homeless
and can qualify for a waiver.
But once they're moved into the ACE wrap
and they have an address, you know,
they have an address temporarily three to six months now.
Right. So, um, I I'm, I'm concerned about the people
that may be getting lost in the shuffle here.
Mm-Hmm. Um, because we didn't necessarily have something up
and running, and I know that we're constantly learning
as a city as we go along, uh, with this,
whether we like to or not.
It's, it's happening. And, uh, I'm, I'm glad
that things are consistently, um, improving.
So, you know, how, how are we staying in touch?
Are we, is there a way to stay in touch from,
from a case management perspective?
Like where, where does that end for the city?
Or is, is there a point at which it does? You
Mean when someone moves out into their own uhhuh?
So once they move out, they can still have access
to their case manager with Catholic Charities.
Okay. They also have, you know, connection
to their ICER case manager.
But really once they're resettled,
because that's a state program, any concerns
or anything that they need, they can
work through Catholic Charities. Okay.
Great. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank, thank you very much. Um, Alder Woman Cruz.
Thank you. Thank you chairman.
And thank you to, um, bein, um, the FSS as well.
I wanna start by saying, um, thank you to the mayor
and to the administration for considering the extension
of the estate policy while I,
I support the state policy.
I think 60 days is not enough
as we hear in all this information about
how long it takes to get a work permit.
Um, you know, just the acclimation into a whole new city.
I think 60 days, it's very little time for them to be able
to navigate on their own.
However, I do support the state policy,
but I think expanding it, um, to be longer than that is some
of the conversations they eventually will be having is,
I'm already speaking with the chairman, um, Vasquez,
regarding, um, what will be an ideal, what would be a more
feasible, um, state policy.
But also I wanna talk about, you know,
one more, one question.
I know there's a lot of questions have been asked about
favor staffing and the process.
Um, earlier, um, you mentioned about if there, you know,
there's some issues within favor staffing, there's a process
to retrain and coach these individuals
and who is the one who is retraining
and coaching any individual
that has any claims against them.
I'll start and then I'll pass it to Danny.
So first it's, you know, our team will do that coaching
and that training, and it depends on what it is.
And so there have been instances where we're like, okay,
these are the requirements of what it takes
to be a shelter manager and these are the expectations.
The site captain may come in and observe some things
and provide some guidance and some feedback,
but then there's also favorite,
their corporate office is also on site.
And so they also notice things.
And so they may have, uh, their own team come in
and say, an individual needs coaching.
So I have an example of there was a person
and they said, you know, the person is not performing at a
shelter manager, they're actually a grade below.
We're going to give them an opportunity to kind
of retrain and go through that process.
Now the person may say, I don't wanna be demo demoted to
that, you know, lower position.
That's a but that is really, you know, they have options of
what, when we're doing the coaching
and training, what can be offered.
Okay. Is there anything you wanna add, Danny?
Um, yeah. Uh, Danny Castaneda, director for New Arrivals
with D-F-S-S-I, I think the biggest thing for us is that,
um, our sheltering operation, given that we one, are
so massive, a lot of our shelters are very large.
Um, and two, uh, running a a shelter
for recent arrivals in an urban area is very unique, um,
and has its unique challenges.
Um, and so I think for us is making sure,
when I say coaching, I think is making sure if,
if we see a gap, then we look at our team to say, did we,
is there a gap in our procedure?
Is there a back a gap in our policy?
Is there a gap in how we trained this individual
or set of individuals?
If it's a number of individuals at a shelter.
Um, so we first look at ourselves like, where's the gap
that, that we need to take back to fill
and then retrain and so on.
And then where is it like, okay, no,
we definitely trained you.
This is, we're gonna reset expectations,
give you another opportunity, and so on.
Um, but we also have, um, a training
and quality control project manager that sits on my team
that will really look to see, okay, shelter one, three,
and seven is really struggling with
incident reporting, for example.
So let's host a training with those three shelters
and the staff at those three shelters to ensure
that we're continuing to drive the point home of
what we expect from them and, um,
and how we wanna continue to support them to get there.
Yeah. Well I support retraining coaching
in any type of setting.
'cause it's needed. We have to understand the favor.
Staffing gets paid very well.
I mean, these individuals are paying well.
And, uh, we, we have really high
expectations, I think, throughout the city.
And that's the number one reason why favor staffing is
always a question, is because this individuals are being
rewarded, are being paid well.
So we, the expectation is for them to deliver the service
that they are expected to do.
Um, but I know that's something that
the city has been navigating through a process,
but I just wanna make sure
that we are holding this individuals accountable.
And I know you are, but I think it adds more
work to you, all of you.
I, again, trying to you going the one goal coaching
and retraining where there should be somebody from, uh, s
who I, you believe you said it,
but they should be the ones
who are really doing this coaching and setting
because they're the ones who are running this type of, um,
operation and they are,
They are all doing, that's when he said the person on his
staff, that's their team that's doing it.
I think there's, I think there's a couple things.
Our team has been very involved
and hands-on because they care.
Right. And so never wanting,
we didn't run shelters before this mission.
Right, exactly. We were the outside
who were the consultants and we gave guidance.
All of us sudden we found our place
and we have 15,000 beds over a thousand people
and not wanting to see anything go wrong.
Right? Like, our job is to protect the people
and make sure that we keep them healthy and safe.
And so that balance of now as we're transitioning to look of
what does it look like when we don't,
'cause there's a thousand plus people that are
managing shelters, and I think
that's why it's really important
that we have more DFSS staff on the new arrival division
because that's not enough to your your point, like
that oversight that the chairman talks about,
which is why these positions are so critical to make sure,
to Danny's point that is it us, did we miss it
because we grew too fast, right?
In May, 3000 beds, now we have, you know, 14,500 beds.
That's huge. That's five times in a matter of months.
And so those meetings with favorite about the accountability
of people who break the rules,
who do not follow our protocol,
who do not uphold our values, is really important
because we can't afford for things to go wrong.
To your point,
I, Maura McCauley, DFSS, um, I would just add, I think
we, we also do have favorite counterparts at every level on
the ground and in the Emergency Operations center.
So when Danny's talking about the coaching
and the, the staffing
and the documentation, it's happening both by the DFSS team.
That team is really paying attention
and looking at the trends.
But then favorite does have staff on the ground from their
corporate and HR office
that are also doing their side of things.
So it is, it is really, um,
a hands-on operation from both the city and favorite.
And then at the different levels
that I think we talked about earlier, we have, you know,
meetings at the corporate level
and beyond to just talk about what we're seeing
and what might need to change from
an accountability perspective.
Thank you. And I know working with, with Bon de Leone
and her team regarding, um, a possible shelter at Ward,
I know they have been very helpful
and I know there's a lot of expectations of
what we wanna see.
The things are going wrong and the changes we need,
but we have to understand
that there is a financial constraint here
and that we need, we need federal and state help,
otherwise, the city alone won't be able
to handle this mission.
So the federal has to show up, the state has
to show up as well to help us.
I hear often, I'm extremely concerned we are as well,
but what are we doing to help with this, um,
humanitarian crisis?
So if there are others who are concerned in the state
of Illinois, they should be also helping us
to open shelters, not only in Chicago,
because Chicago is not the only city
in the state of Illinois.
Other sub cities needs to step up
and also help with the humanitarian crisis.
So today I ask again, all those, the federal
and the state leaders to also help out.
I know, understand there's conversations at times
where it says, um, well, the city hasn't reached out to us,
or the city hasn't done this.
The message is there.
I mean, we, you hear the news every single day with,
you know, with the struggles we have.
So don't wait for somebody to go up to you
and take, uh, actions
and be a leader into, again, this crisis that we are having.
So then we can get the federal help
to get work permits even faster so we can get other, um,
organizations to step in.
And as much as I wanna say, what is, you know,
planning on the table for my ward regarding the shelter St.
Barts, um, I just can't speak on it,
but I, I see a different path to let's turn the page
and try something different, um, that might work.
When it comes to running a shelter,
I do agree running a shelter with so many, um,
individuals in one place, it's impossible to handle.
Um, rather having small,
but also having other organizations have faith leaders
outside of, you know, what have seen,
we have seen in the past and more specifically the
Archdiocese of Chicago to step in
and help us with this, um, crisis.
It's much needed. So I wanna say thank you
to the archdiocese,
but also to the city helping out, um,
on this possibility when it comes to, again,
turning the page and trying something
completely, um, different.
But I just, again, I just wanna, I know it's tough.
I know at times we ask a lot
of questions, what wanna be done?
But again, having the opportunity to work with, um, Beatrice
and her team, I just wanna say, um, thank you. Thank
You, thank you very much. I think
One more thing, I'm sorry. Oh
yeah, one more thing. Absolutely.
Um, I just wanna address, um, our people in the gallery.
They came here, um, and I wanna say in Spanish,
but what I'm gonna say is thank you for coming in here
to be brave to, um, speak of what the things
that they would like to see.
But I also wanna ask 'em for their help.
As much as they're asking for our help, we need their help
as well in various different ways.
Um, one of them is, you know,
the number one concern has been outside
of the, uh, buildings.
The cleanliness help us to be able to help you
because I guess they, they can see there is,
there is tension here, but we all need to work together.
So, um,
thank you.
Now I'm done.
Okay. Right now at the end.
Okay. Okay. Thank, thank you for that.
Um, just wanted to add, uh, to kind
of your point about the federal
and state, we are also looking as a committee, um, talking
to some of our federal partners to identify
what could be done through the executive branch.
Knowing that Congress trying to come
to some agreement heading into a presidential
election is its own problem.
But to see what could be done through the executive branch,
independent of that, uh, to get things moving.
There clearly has been an example
with the TPS um, expansion.
We also know that folks that have been here
for decades haven't had their work authorization as well.
And that's a conversation that should be a joint one.
So thank you for that. Um, alderman six Lopez,
Thank you.
Um, thank you chairman.
Um, and I would like to echo as well comments by, um, uh,
Al person Cruz also.
Um,
um, I would like to just, uh, I think a lot
of our colleagues have talked a lot, a lot about,
um, several issues.
One of the things that I, I would like to reemphasize
and have conversations with administration about this is
how slow the work permits have been processed.
I wanna highlight this issue
because there were about 30,000 Ukrainian refugees
almost were in the same period of time
that received a very different
treatment from the federal government.
Even though that asylum seekers
that are right now under jurisdiction
of the city have the exact same immigration status.
So I will repeat this.
There are people right now who are in shelters in the city,
15,000 in all municipal shelters
that have had a very different
response from the federal government than the Ukrainian
counterparts, even though they share the exact same
immigration status.
I reemphasize that.
So my question is,
and I think the numbers, you know, are very telling,
you know, we have about, you know, I would say close
to 30,000, uh, refugees from the global south.
Um, only a thousand permits,
just roughly speaking have been processed so far, um,
in the city of Chicago.
We have had, you know,
start receiving residents new neighbors since
the summer 2022.
So can you ex can, to your point in terms of what we can do
with the federal government, and I think the federal
government is moving in the complete opposite direction.
I mean, today we heard that the president is
thinking about closing the border.
I don't even know how you do that.
So the disconnection,
and I'd be happy to, you know, uh, to share more on that,
but it is real.
We see the conditions in the border,
yet the pe the residents that are now here,
the new neighbors, we have a shortage about
29,000 work permits.
That is a big problem. So what can we do as a city?
I know that we pass a resolution to expand work permits
for everybody and urge the federal
government, what else can we do?
Seems like they do not listen.
So how do we get to expedite this world permits a thing
as we heard from the public, that is the big ask.
Expediting and making sure that world permits come as the,
you know, we're seeing unfortunately, um,
time is running out and funding is running out.
So that I thing would be probably one of the biggest task.
So, and I know this is not the function of the city,
but what else can we do, um, in terms of calling attention
to something that should be given by now?
You wanna come just 'cause
Sure. The clinic, um,
just once again, BJ Lord, DFSS, uh,
I think what what we've seen is
that everybody in the shelters that we can screen
and get to a work authorization event.
We've done. So, uh, short
of the federal government amending
what TPS eligibility looks like
or EAD eligibility looks like.
Um, I personally, I'm, I'm not aware of,
of any other avenues that we can advocate for, um,
a a wider scope of who might be eligible for,
for work authorization.
Right. You know, for, from my understanding, it's,
it's the EAD eligibility and the TPS eligibility.
So, um, you know, advocating for folks to, to
re reimagine, uh, what eligibility could look like under EAD
or TPS, uh, is, is is one option.
Uh, I, you know, it's,
it's not something that they're gonna take lightly.
But, uh, yeah,
Go ahead. I can jump in
here a little bit again.
Uh, Ray Es first deputy, I would say that, um,
the federal government, um, has a couple of pathways
or avenues or tools at their disposal
that they can use by executive order.
One of them would be expanding, uh, the date, uh,
TPS was expanded through
or made people eligible through July 31st.
Uh, people that arrived to July 31st, um,
they could expand that.
Um, so, and,
and if they were to do that, then it would potentially,
in theory, cover more people.
The other thing that they also have
to address is the asylum backlog.
Uh, we have heard of people,
and just in this brief, in this briefing,
there will be people that will not qualify for TPS,
but their avenue may be asylum.
Um, the asylum, uh, process
and system has been attacked left
and right, uh, since the previous
presidential administration.
I think the, this specific federal administration can do
more to ensure that they're working on the asylum backlog
and ensuring that people are moving through the process
as fast as possible.
The other, um, there are other avenues of relief, uh,
that the federal government could also explore.
Um, another effort that has been in,
in the federal government,
and this was just announced through DHS,
but we do know that there are specific protections
for undocumented
or immigrant workers, um,
that either witness violations at the workplace
or are victims of violations at the workplace.
That is, um, new guidelines were just released last, uh,
I think believe last week by DHS.
I think that, that, that could also be another area
where the federal government could invest in terms
of resources and information sharing.
Um, so there are a couple of, again,
tools at the federal government's disposal
to expand the number of people that could, uh, qualify
for a type of immigration relief.
And, and just to enhance the,
what BJ was saying is at the local level, the workshops,
although, you know, it's 150 plus people a day,
and they've really captured just about everybody who's
eligible, they're being processed within 30 days,
which is much faster than if people were filing
for their work permits on their own.
And that's part of our, our advocacy
and our work with U-S-C-I-S
and the state to, to get those processed
as quickly as possible.
Earlier it was shared
that there will be a phase two in which these clinics will
be open to people outside of the shelter system so
that if they've moved on, we can still capture them
and provide that support.
But locally, I think that between city state, um, and the,
and, and the, the nonprofits that are supporting,
they're working as quickly as they can at this point.
It's a matter of people are no longer eligible,
the higher numbers are not eligible for work authorization.
And we have to do the advocacy work
that Ray was talking about.
But I also think we have to advocate
to the federal government that individuals come
with the protections and the benefit
that the Ukrainians did, right.
When 30,000 have been resettled, they came with benefits.
And so it wasn't something that cities had
to shoulder the state did it.
We didn't notice. And I think we have
to have those same policies across the board
regardless of where you come from.
Yeah. And that's my, that's my follow up.
And I know we are out almost, you know, running outta time.
But I think the, the role of the state in this, right,
I think that we look forward, um,
and we said this publicly to a collaborative relationship
with the state on the resettlement process.
Mm-hmm. This is not outside of this,
but we still need about 7,000, uh, beds that we need
to create for resettlement purposes.
And without the state partnering with us,
without the federal government partner with us, I do think
that the state can do a lot to create more, uh, programs.
You know, there's one just manufacturing about 30,000
vacancies that of jobs
that we can be fulfilling if the state will take on
this seriously.
And I know that there's a lot of, uh, narratives out there,
but I I'll tell you that historically immigration has not
been a burden for our country.
Uh, and it has been a, a huge benefit.
It seems like people wanna have it both ways,
rip the benefits but do not pay for the costs.
So that brings me to the next question.
You know, when it comes to one of the big issues
that we have is people not committing to work
with US State Federal.
And I think that means to be a problem.
I would like to ask the chairman, um, of course
that we already have heard,
at least from one state representative who's questioning
the, uh, hosting of the Democratic Convention here in
Chicago without having a collaborative relationship
that help us address these issues with work permits,
these issues with housing and many other things.
This time I think is an urgent call of thing now,
would adhere from the president such a out of, you know, out
of out of touch comment about the solution
is, is closing the border.
I do urge the committee to work with us
because if the cost benefit analysis is a benefit
for certain people and we are bearing the costs, I do think
that we have to reconsider what are the cost benefits
of having a convention without the resources
that we need when we have people in leadership
that can like, and I thank you, uh, Ray for sharing
that use executive power to maintain the stability
of the city because they use it to bypass Congress
to bond people, but they don't do it to address poverty
and the needs of the city of Chicago.
I do think that the city of Chicago should now
exercise the leverage on not accepting to host something
that is not in the best interest of the city of Chicago.
My last comment, thank you, chairman. So
Just for clarity, 'cause I wanna make sure, you'd like to
have us figure out a way
to have the conversation about should we host A DNC at all
based on the situation?
That is correct. Okay.
Just wanna make sure note for the record. Okay. Thank you.
Um, all right. Uh, so, uh, you said you wanted to,
Uh, I wanna just thank everyone for, for being here
and remind a few reminders.
IJ has now scheduled, um, briefings with the aldermanic, uh,
committees or different groups, um,
every first Friday of the month.
We will also, we meet once a month
with the Illinois General Assembly
and once a month with our federal delegation.
So we really are working hard to keep everyone updated
with the latest information to take your questions.
If you want to reach out to us, please go through IGA so
that we can, um, be better coordinated
with our, our responses.
But I hope that you find that
whenever you reach out to anyone on our teams, we try
to get back to you as soon as possible.
And then, you know, take a look at those alderman briefings.
A lot of work does go into putting that together
for you on Fridays.
Um, much of what we cover is captured there
and if you ever have follow up conversations, we're happy
to go deeper with that information. Thank
You. Thank you very much. Um, also
to, uh, update as far
as the committee, I know we've had the working
groups that were happening on Monday.
We're actually looking to reset
'cause uh, now that there is a specific kind
of briefing time for the auditors to get the information,
um, that was a large part of
what was happening in the working groups.
We're actually looking to kind of reset
and be more focused on like legislative
and policy solutions.
Um, so as we get more information on
that, we'll communicate that out.
Um, so copies of, uh, any other questions? No. Alright.
Copies of the presentation
and written public comment will be hosted on our website.
Welcome to chicago.org.
Within a week, um, we'll actually try
to get the slides up sooner for folks
'cause there's a lot of information on the presentation.
And we really wanna thank you for, for doing so.
Um, any through the chair follow us will be sent
to Alders pending response from executive departments
and the mayor's office.
Uh, I want to thank b, uh, commissioner Kazi,
Matt, OEMC, the the grievance team, all of the above.
Thank you so much, um,
for all the hard work that you're doing.
And also on top of that being to put, having
to put together the reporting tool.
Let us know all the hard work that you're doing,
which is more work on top of the work that you're doing.
Uh, but thank you so much for all of that.
Um, uh, thank you for being here to answer questions.
Um, you know, oftentimes we hear about the issues in the
news and some of the challenges,
but I think having equal time to show what's being done
and kind of what the progress has looked like
is absolutely important.
Um,
um,
and, um, and
thank you all so much for participating.
As far as the public, whether you agree, disagree
or not, the fact that we're able
to have this engagement is important.
And the fact that we can do so in a way that allows us
to get the information for folks regardless
of their stance is important.
Thank you all for showing what it's like to be one city
and one people here in Chicago.
Um, with there being no further business
before the committee, may we have a motion to adjourn?
So moved by all of y'all. Uh, hearing no objection.
So ordered the meaning
of the Committee on Immigrant Refugee
Rights is now adjourned.
Thank you everyone.