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May 21, 2006 · The Chicago area is under an “enhanced” risk for severe weather Tuesday, bringing the threat of damaging winds and possibly even tornadoes following a stormy Monday that saw strong systems and ...
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- ‘Where am I going to go?’
- ‘It’s just not sustainable’
- Shattered dreams
CHICAGO — Maria Cinfuentes stood outside Chicago’s largest migrant shelter on a windy morning last week, rubbing her cold hands together and worrying about her future.
She learned last week that her stay at the shelter, the only home she’s known since arriving in the U.S. from Venezuela in December, will come to an end next month. But she has no idea where she’ll go next.
“I don’t have a job. My husband doesn’t have a job,” the 30-year-old mother of three told NBC News in Spanish. “I don’t know anyone here. How am I going to pay rent?”
More than 13,000 migrants like Cinfuentes are under pressure to find homes and work before they are mass-evicted from city-operated shelters to conserve the budget and make room for newcomers.
But in interviews last week with more than a dozen migrants, many who spoke to NBC News expressed fear that they won’t make that deadline, especially because it is nearly impossible for the newest arrivals to get rental assistance and quick access to work permits. Advocates say it’s unlikely that everyone will be able to successfully transition out of the shelters and instead will need to reapply for access to another shelter. They fear some will end up homeless.
“I can’t even sleep. I’m staying up all night thinking,” Cinfuentes said. “It makes me sick.”
As of Thursday, more than 13,200 migrants were living in 28 shelters run by the city and state, according to a city census of new arrivals. Most of them have arrived since June 2023 as part of a busing campaign by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is seeking stricter security at the southern border. Last month, Abbott said he has sent more than 100,000 migrants to so-called sanctuary cities since April 2022, about 35,000 of them to Chicago.
Chicago, along with New York City and Denver, have struggled to keep up with the demand for housing and social services brought on by the influx. And in response, Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson put a 60-day cap on how long people can stay in city-operated migrant shelters. The first wave of evictions will come in mid-March, with 5,673 people expected to be removed from their current shelters by the end of April.
Daniel Vizcaino, a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker, has been told that his new move-out date is in early April.
“It really stresses me out,” he said. “What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?”
He’s been looking for housing since December. Although he has a case manager to oversee his search and three months of rental assistance to offer a potential landlord, he doesn’t have any leads.
Vizcaino spends his days trying to speed up the process by scrolling through Facebook Marketplace or walking around the city in search of “For Rent” signs.
Vizcaino and others face long odds in putting the pieces together at all, let alone in time to meet the looming eviction deadline.
About 7,000 people, roughly half of the migrants in shelters, do not have access to rental assistance because they arrived after the state cut the program, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, said. That means that they are under even greater pressure to find work to be able to afford rent.
But migrants who arrived in Chicago and elsewhere after July 31 are not eligible for an extension of what’s known as “temporary protected status,” which offers temporary relief from deportation and the right to obtain work authorization.
Without that protection, most migrants who qualify have to wait about six months after filing their complete asylum applications before they can receive work permits.
A majority of the migrants coming to Chicago are escaping political and economic strife in Venezuela and do not have family or friends in the U.S. to help them.
The Rev. Kenneth Phelps, who helps migrants find housing and other resources through the Concord Baptist Church, said the lack of rental assistance and work permits has made it “really impossible” for some migrants to leave the shelter system.
The barriers have made the dream of starting a new life in the U.S. seem out of reach, some migrants said.
Last Wednesday night, a group of about 30 newly arrived people met at Concord Baptist Church for a weekly English class. As part of the lesson, they were given a prompt by their instructor: “What is your dream?” he asked.
To “move forward with my family,” Elibexis Alvarez, a 28-year-old asylum-seeker, told NBC News in Spanish after class.
But right now, she said, she and her husband are stuck. Both are seeking jobs despite the monthslong wait for work permits and they are facing down the faint hope of finding an apartment before Alvarez, who is seven months pregnant, gives birth.
“He’s been trying to apply to job after job, looking for an apartment, anything that can give us some stability, because my due date is coming. How do you take care of a baby like that?” she said.
Vizcaino, who also attended the English class, said he dreams of resuming his career as a model, buying a car and taking night classes one day to become a lawyer, though he gets discouraged by the lack of control he has over his life.
"NBC Chicago News" features simulcasts and encores of the station's newscasts as well as original content made for the channel. Prior to the launch of the streaming channel, the station had a curated playlist available on the streaming service since its April 2020 launch.
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