Construction on Brighton Park migrant tent camp to begin Monday, alderwoman says
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Despite opposition from neighbors and City Council members, construction of Chicago’s first tent encampment to house migrants during the cold winter months will begin Monday in Brighton Park, according to a Southwest Side alderwoman.
Ald. Julia Ramirez, 12th, released a letter Saturday detailing her opposition to the plans for her ward and said Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office notified her Friday that GardaWorld Federal Services — a private security firm the city is contracting to build and run the camps — would begin erecting tents Monday on 38th Street and California Avenue.
“The administration’s decision to proceed without addressing our concerns not only undermines transparency and efforts of co-governance,” she wrote, “but also disregards the well-being of everyone in our community, including the asylum-seekers who have come to our great city seeking safety and refuge.”
Officials with the Johnson administration did not comment Sunday on when construction is beginning.
Ramirez referred to an environmental impact study conducted on the site, the results of which she said have yet to be shared with her or her constituents. She said her office had been informed of the presence of toxic metals in the soil, but even though the pollution had been remediated she still worried about the safety and health of new arrivals.
Local environmental justice activists have raised concerns about what testing, if any, has been carried out at the site. They also say the location proposed to house thousands of the city’s most vulnerable people is in an industrial zone near an interstate and was once home to a zinc smelter that might still render the land toxic.
“It is essential for residents of this community to be fully aware of the environmental impacts and potential risks associated with this project,” Ramirez said. “We have a right to know if the site is safe for both asylum-seekers and community members at large.”
In a statement released Sunday, Johnson spokesperson Ronnie Reese said the city performed an environmental analysis and collected historical and environmental information based on international standards used by the American Society for Testing and Materials.
“In addition, the City conducted site visits and investigated pre-exiting conditions to determine any potential environmental impacts at the site,” Reese said. “These common mitigation strategies are ongoing and anticipated for completion by the end of this week, weather permitting.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently announced that the state would allocate $65 million to help set up a tent encampment for migrants in Chicago before winter set in. And though he had expressed concerns to City Hall about the concept, state documents indicate the Illinois Emergency Management Agency in mid-May sought proposals from companies to assist the migrant crisis by providing options for indoor and outdoor shelter.
Johnson quietly signed a one-year, $29.4 million deal with GardaWorld in September after having announced he intended to move 1,600 migrants from airports and police stations to temporary shelters ahead of the colder months. As of Sunday, according to a daily census from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, over 1,000 migrants were staying in police districts and almost 200 were staying at O’Hare.
Plans for the first migrant encampment with winterized tents to be set up at Brighton Park were floated around mid-October. The city’s six-month, $548,400 land use contract for the site at 3710 S. California Ave. was approved shortly after, eliciting objections from Ramirez who said she had not been notified that the lease for the site in her ward had been signed.
Growing tensions have boiled over a few times since residents in the Southwest Side neighborhood first got wind of the city’s plans: A crowd swarmed Ramirez at a protest and a few days later a group scuffled with police ahead of a community meeting.
