Chicago is a sanctuary city, a welcoming place for migrants.
That’s what Cesar Pino Marcano, 28, heard when he arrived at the southern border of the United States seeking asylum — fleeing hunger and chasing a promised dream of a job that could pay enough to ensure the well-being of his family in Venezuela.
But when he arrived on a bus full of other people on the same path as him, it was only the cold wind of a January night that welcomed them at Union Station downtown. The group of more than 20 got off the bus and parted ways, he said, each without direction but searching for a warm place to stay.
Pino Marcano and three other men he met on his journey north from Venezuela walked to a place where they heard from other asylum-seekers that they could find space. But they were turned away because there were no more beds, Pino Marcano said.
That night the group slept under a bus shelter, but Pino Marcano found resolve.
“After everything that I’ve gone through to get here, spending the night in the streets of Chicago was not so harsh,” he said.
Like Pino Marcano and his friends, many newly arrived migrants in Chicago now find themselves spending their days in train stations, police districts and churches, waiting for a call back from 311 to get space off the street. Others are staying in warming centers during the day, and are transported to homeless shelters to spend the night before they are told to leave by 5 a.m., some migrants told Tribune.
As more migrants continue to arrive and those facilities are at capacity, Chicagoans are stepping in to provide temporary housing for some migrants, opening their homes, basements and apartments after realizing the precarious situation that the migrants face without having a constant safe and warm place to stay.
There’s a family of four — including a baby — staying with a good Samaritan who answered the call of Jacobita Cortes, pastor of Adalberto Memorial United Methodist Church, in Humboldt Park. The family had been roaming the streets early this month without jackets or a single dollar for a meal until they found the church.
After calling 311, the family was told to wait until they got a call back. They didn’t get a call, so Cortes took it upon herself to find someone to take them in.
In Pilsen, Pino Marcano, his three friends and four other migrants who’d arrived in Chicago from Colorado right after Jan. 1 finally found a clean and warm place to sleep after 10 days, thanks to activist Delilah Martinez, manager of the Mural Movement. Before that, the group had been staying at the warming center at Garfield Community Service Center and eating at churches.
“Pero nos decían que siguieramos esperando, estábamos desesperados,” said Yunnio Jaure, 41. “They kept telling us to wait, but we were frustrated.”
Jaure is one of the asylum-seekers who are staying in an apartment complex that Martinez helped to find.
Since migrants began to arrive in Chicago in August, Martinez has collaborated with other residents and organizations to collect items for the migrants and has helped them to connect to resources. Some 2,000 people have passed through the door of her galley, getting clothes and basic necessities and seeking jobs and health care, she said.
But she never thought it would get to a point where she would feel the need to help to find them a place to live, Martinez said.
Read More: Migrants arriving in Chicago sleeping in bus shelters, police stations