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Broadway Armory to serve as newest migrant shelter, impacting Chicago Park District programs
Thursday night in Edgewater, city leaders told neighbors the Broadway Armory will serve as the citys newest shelter for migrants. The decision means many of the Park Districts summer and fall programs at the Armory will have to be canceled or relocated.
CHICAGO - Thursday night in Edgewater, city leaders told neighbors the Broadway Armory will serve as the city's newest shelter for migrants. The decision means many of the Park District's summer and fall programs at the Armory will have to be canceled or relocated.
"It is hard for us to repurpose space, but it is the time that we're living right now where we need to repurpose space," said Deputy Mayor for Migrant, Immigrant & Refugee Rights Beatriz Ponce de Leon to a round of both cheers and jeers.
Ponce de Leon delivered the news to a packed house at the Armory, informing residents that it will become the city's 17th migrant shelter starting August 1. It will house up to 350 newly-arrived migrants in the gymnasium who are right now sleeping at police stations.
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"Given this significant need, we will be opening a shelter here at the Broadway Armory and today we want to talk about what that looks like," she said.
The move means dozens of Park District summer and fall programs will either be relocated or canceled early — not just for at-risk youth, but for seniors as well.
"Hot lunches will continue, but all the other programming here for seniors is gone," said Pat Sharkey, leader of a coalition of Edgewater Block Clubs & Associations. "Our groups want to welcome people. We want to be part of the solution. This facility could be part of the solution, but as a recreational facility. As a hub for services for migrants."
"There is no way that we are anti-new arrivals," said Troy McMillan of the newly-formed group Save Our Broadway Armory Park Programs. "But I can't for the life of me understand why you're displacing the at-risk youth that are here now to bring in other displaced youth."
Many in Thursday's audience support the move to make the Armory a temporary shelter, with the border crisis being so severe and Chicago being a sanctuary city.
Just today: three more buses arrived from Texas unexpectedly, each carrying around 50 people. The City says the Broadway Armory will begin housing migrants on Tuesday.