Naperville drops idea for local migrant host family sign-up list after officials find it ‘not necessary’
Naperville is no longer looking into the possibility of a city-curated sign-up sheet for local residents willing to host migrant families.
City staff, at the suggestion of Naperville City Councilman Josh McBroom at a council meeting last week, had been researching the idea and found other agencies are pursuing similar work and therefore it was “not necessary for further city consideration,” City Manager Doug Krieger said this week in a memorandum to council members.
Consequently, the matter will not appear on a future city council agenda, the memo said.
Since August 2022, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent more than 34,900 migrants to the Chicago area on the grounds that his state cannot handle the influx of people arriving from the south on its own. Typically, the migrants have been brought to Illinois by buses that drop them at designated locations in Chicago or deliver them to suburbs, where they are taken to the city by Metra trains.
To date, six buses carrying migrants have left passengers at Naperville’s downtown Metra station since Dec. 21, according to city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche.
With the new precedent of buses arriving unannounced at suburban stations, McBroom’s suggestion of a sign-up list was made for those who might willing to offer migrant housing, which he described as a way the city could offer help without setting up initiatives requiring the use of taxpayer dollars.
He said that while some suburbs have responded with regulations establishing when and where buses can drop off migrants, that was not something he thought the city should pursue.
There was enough support from the council for staff to be directed to vet the sign-up sheet idea.
McBroom said Friday he had not heard from any resident wanting to be placed on the housing list.
“I guess we don’t have any demand in the town for it,” he said. “I mean, I made this proposal and not a single person in our entire town contacted me and said, ‘Hey Josh, is the list ready? Where’s the list? Can I sign up … and house a migrant?’”
The city, however, did receive a “significant amount of feedback” regarding McBroom’s proposal, Krieger said in his memo.
Asked about the nature of the feedback, LaCloche said people offered their opinions via email and phone calls but she declined to elaborate on the content of the comments received.
Staff believed it was redundant to explore McBroom’s idea further once they learned several organizations were already collecting names of people willing to house migrants, LaCloche confirmed.
Those organizations, she said, include the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Shelter and Services program, the Illinois Department of Human Services, Housing Action Illinois, Catholic Charities and New Life Centers.
According to McBroom, the sign-up sheet idea was conceived as a “polite challenge to individuals in our community and surrounding communities who support open border policy,” he said.
“There’s people that maybe (thought) I was pulling a stunt. Or I’ve been accused of making a joke. I’m proposing a solution. Not with tax dollars. Not with anything publicly funded. But if people aren’t going to pressure their congressmen and congresswomen to get a hold of the border and secure it, then here’s a sign-up sheet.
“There’s thousands of homeless people. It is a humanitarian crisis. If you’re not going to demand that your government secure the border, and you support these policies, then maybe you can open up your house. And I say that sincerely. It sounds like we don’t have anyone that wants to.”
