(Headline USA) This week, Chicago began providing illegal immigrants with $9,000 each in rental assistance to be doled out over a monthslong period, even as city officials complain about the overwhelming number of migrants that have flooded the city over the past several months.
The rental assistance program is part of Chicago’s efforts to free room in the city’s shelters, which are struggling to care for the more than 11,000 migrants currently living in them, according to Chicago deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione–Zayas. Another 4,000 are currently staying in police stations and in the O’Hare International Airport.
The city has allocated $4 million to the program to help migrants find temporary housing, and the state has contributed another $38 million. Those eligible will receive up to $9,000, which can be used to cover rent, furniture and moving costs, according to Pacione–Zayas.
“That rent lasts for six months and ideally people would have started their legal process, secured legal work authorization and be able to sustain that apartment,” she said.
“I guess the payment toward the landlord is based on market rate,” she added. “It’s based on the configuration of the apartment, and so it varies from place to place.”
The move comes even as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and other city officials admit that they do not have the resources to help the migrants streaming into the self-proclaimed sanctuary city.
Johnson even canceled his planned trip to the southern border this week, option instead to “address the immediate urgency of adding shelter space to house thousands of new arrivals currently sleeping in police stations, airports, or outside,” he said.
“With the weather growing colder and hundreds of migrants arriving each day, it is more important than ever that every stakeholder at the state, federal and local level work diligently to address this challenge, while continuing to meet the needs of Chicago and Illinois residents,” Johnson claimed.
Neither Johnson nor Pacione–Zayas mentioned that Chicago’s rental assistance program will likely serve as an additional incentive for more migrants to travel to the city.
