Jose Gregorio Mendoza Leal (right) sits inside a makeshift tent outside the Town Hall District police station with his wife Yohana Mendoza. He said conditions are especially tough on their daughter Yohanyelis, 6, (center) and his elderly father. “It feels worse when you have kids because when it’s cold you feel powerless. We don’t have a way to shelter from the cold. We have a lot of clothes, but it’s not the same as a house.”
Emmanuel Camarillo/Sun-Times
Even as temperatures drop, Yaritsa Leal and a dozen of her family members are sleeping outside the Town Hall District police station as there isn’t enough room for them inside.
They’ve jury-rigged a tent to shield them from the elements, but it’s not enough to keep out Chicago weather.
“We huddle under there and give each other warmth,” said Leal, 43. “I feel cold, I feel uncomfortable and I feel scared, but I know that I can’t come here and demand too much.”
The Venezuelan family is among the 3,000 migrants who were staying at police stations on Thursday, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication. With room for only dozens inside at each, hundreds, like the Leal family, are sleeping outside, according to volunteer estimates.
The North Side police station is one of the few where migrants have recently found some relief inside a city warming bus overnight, but that’s not offered at all stations, and those with little protection are facing a precarious situation advocates worry could become disastrous.
“Based on Chicago winters and the weather we’re heading into, I worry that it’s inevitable,” said Elizabeth Huggins, one of several volunteers at the Grand Central District police station, on the prospect of migrants becoming ill.
“Even if we don’t get all the way to hypothermia and frostbite, people are going to get sick, because there’s no way to dry off and keep warm.”
Migrants staying at the Town Hall District police station have jury-rigged a tent to help ward off the elements because there isn’t enough room inside. They say the tent helps, but it’s not enough to truly keep them warm as the weather becomes cold.
Emmanuel Camarillo/Sun-Times
At the station in Belmont Cragin, where there’s room for about 50 people inside, Huggins estimated at least 70 more were sleeping outside, nearly all of them with tents to protect themselves because of the limited space outside the station.
Huggins recently ordered 100 weather-resistant sleeping bags for those outside but isn’t sure how people will manage in the meantime without something like a warming bus provided by the city or proper winter clothes.
In a briefing with reporters on Thursday, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, first deputy chief of staff for Mayor Brandon Johnson, did not respond directly to questions about whether the city would send city buses to all stations, although she reiterated a call that the city recently put out for donations to help supply arrivals (over 18,000 in total) with winter clothes and other necessities.
Pacione-Zayas also said the construction of Johnson’s “winterized base camps” was “imminent,” although she did not provide an exact date and said about only a quarter of alders had provided potential locations, as requested by the mayor.
She also alluded to working with “faith-based leaders” on a “plan for emergency staging and shelter,” but did not offer further details.
In the meantime, volunteers at police stations with room for tents say they can’t get ahold of them fast enough.
“It’s difficult to source 100 tents,” said Lydia Wong, a volunteer at the Harrison District station.
There’s no room for people to sleep inside the station in East Garfield Park, meaning the 110 people there are all sleeping outside.
Volunteers set up 30 tents on Wednesday, Wong said, but haven’t been able to find tents for the dozens more who need them.
Migrants try to protect themselves from the rain outside the Austin District police station last month.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file
Wong encouraged those interested in helping out to start by joining Chi Welcome, a Facebook group where volunteers coordinate donations and other forms of assistance for migrants at police stations.
Without an urgent change, migrants themselves worry things could become drastic.
Jose Luis Perez, Leal’s husband, said he’s heard about how brutal Chicago’s winters can be, and is afraid they will still be stuck outside the station when it’s freezing.
“We as Venezuelans aren’t used to such cold,” Perez said. “I’ve told others out here to get ready because what’s coming is going to be difficult, and we aren’t prepared.”
The family members said they don’t know when or if they’ll be able to find room at a more traditional shelter.
“I’d ask the city and the government to help us,” Perez said, “to approach this with a little more urgency.”
Michael Loria is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
