Pritzker administration sought migrant tent camp proposals before Mayor Brandon Johnson took office, records show
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Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s recent announcement that the state would spend $65 million to help Chicago set up a tent encampment for migrants before winter sets in came less than two months after the second-term Democrat tried to distance himself from the concept when it was unveiled by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Pritzker in September said he had expressed “concerns” to City Hall about housing asylum-seekers in winterized base camps as an alternative to police stations and city airports where thousands of migrants have been sleeping while awaiting placement in the city’s overburdened shelter system.
“If we have existing facilities, we ought to use all of those that are willing to do it,” Pritzker said, emphasizing his preference for bricks-and-mortar shelters and adding that tents weren’t “the only option.”
But state documents indicate the concept for housing migrants in tents took shape not at City Hall but within Pritzker’s own administration.
Months before this fall’s surge in migrant arrivals and Johnson’s tent city plan being announced in September, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency in mid-May sought proposals from companies to assist the migrant crisis by providing shelter, noting that it was looking for both indoor and “outdoor (soft sided)” lodging options, bid documents show.
The purpose of the state contract, which ultimately was signed in July with controversial contractor GardaWorld Federal Services, was to “meet the needs for temporary housing ... and to enable Illinois state and local governmental units to purchase a temporary housing solution,” according to bid documents.
The more complete picture of how the tent plan came about emerges as cold weather approaches and as the continued arrival of migrants, largely from tropical Venezuela, stretches state and city resources and tests leaders’ resolve to live up to their welcoming rhetoric. It also underscores that the Pritzker administration has played a key role in efforts to address the migrant crisis even as it has at times tried to minimize its involvement in the city’s shelter plan.
But as the state steps in with the money for a tent encampment, along with $95 million more for a centralized intake center and other services to help migrants transition to more permanent housing and jobs, new city and state policies are limiting shelter stays and phasing out rental assistance for asylum-seekers.
The state’s contract with GardaWorld, which the Johnson administration used to quickly ink its own $29.4 million base camp deal in September, includes specifications for “a turnkey basecamp with ClearSpan fabric structures with rip-stop fabric weave, natural ventilation, armshield cover and multiple foundation options to allow flexibility in building location.”
Until announcing last week that the state would pay to set up one of the camps for the city, the Pritzker administration has pushed the idea that the city has been driving the shelter effort. The governor, for example, said in September that the state had not yet used the contract but that it was “certainly available for cities and counties and others at the local level.”
But in response to questions from the Tribune, the governor’s office acknowledged last week that the inclusion of tent-like structures in the May bid solicitation was “a collaborative effort” between IEMA and the Illinois Department of Human Services “as they prepared for every possible outcome.”
The possibility of housing migrants in tents rather than buildings had “always been on the table” in conversations with City Hall — under both Johnson and the prior administration of Mayor Lori Lightfoot — “given the few practical options to house mass amounts of people on an emergency basis and the space limitations on indoor sites,” Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said in an email.
“The governor’s concern with soft shelter sites at that time they were announced was because cold weather was just a few months away and the preference has always been to house people in brick-and-mortar shelter sites,” Abudayyeh said. “But as we move closer and closer to winter, people are still sleeping outside police stations in regular tents with no resources so soft shelter sites provide better accommodations, and more importantly, allow asylum-seekers access to caseworkers and a path to independence.”
While they’re a step up from the camping tents some asylum-seekers have been using, it remains an open question how well the structures GardaWorld would provide can withstand Chicago’s often brutal winter weather.
Though outfitted with heating and air conditioning, the structures only are equipped to provide heat up to 70 degrees with an outdoor temperature of 40 degrees, according to contract documents. The average high temperature for December in Chicago is just under 37 degrees, and it dips below 32 degrees for January, according to the National Weather Service.
The Johnson administration did not provide details on the timeline of the state’s involvement in the tent plan.
The city has been working with the state on its base camp plans, “using the state’s existing contract with GardaWorld to ensure new arrivals are off police station and airport floors and into secure interim congregate housing with steady meals, health care services and wraparound services,” Johnson spokesman Ronnie Reese said in a statement.
“Our primary motivation has been to provide shelter, knowing this firm had been vetted by the state through its (request for proposals) process, and there was a critical need to find adequate temporary shelter housing,” Reese said
The state bid solicitation for shelter assistance went out May 12, three days before Johnson took office.
IEMA and Department of Human Services officials “have no knowledge or recollection of anyone in the administration suggesting the concept to” Johnson’s team before the mayor introduced the tent proposal in early September, Abudayyeh said.
Documents indicate, however, that the state officials provided Johnson’s administration with details about Garda World’s tent proposal in August.
GardaWorld beat out three other bidders for the contract through a competitive process in which it received the highest ranking, records show.
At the time, the Virginia-based company had been working with state officials for months under a separate contract for a still-unrealized plan to turn a former CVS store in the Little Village neighborhood into an indoor shelter site for migrants.
The state and GardaWorld signed the tent-related contract July 26, two days after the city’s deputy mayor for immigration, Beatriz Ponce de León, emailed state officials a link to a Denver Post article about officials in the Colorado capital abandoning plans for a $40 million deal with the company to provide migrant services amid a backlash from advocates and nonprofits.
“We’d like to discuss possible implications here,” Ponce de León wrote.
Earlier this fall, the state Department of Human Services said the city’s concerns were addressed “by collaborating with GardaWorld on its operating policies and procedures to ensure a human services lens.”
The contract the company signed in July says its training for shelter workers will include information on “cultural competency and diversity.”
In early August, a little over a week after the contract was signed and a month before Johnson went public with plans to house asylum-seekers in so-called base camps, a state Human Services official contacted the mayor’s administration to provide details about GardaWorld’s tent proposal.
“If you’d like to be connected to GardaWorld or have us pull together some specific data, please let us know,” Kirstin Chernawsky, who oversees the migrant response for the state agency, wrote to Johnson’s deputy chief staff, Cristina Pacione-Zayas, in an Aug. 7 email with the subject line “Tent Quotes.”
According to a breakdown Chernawsky provided, costs would run up to $7.8 million per month to shelter up to 1,400 migrants at a site without access to existing utilities.
“Please also note that this is just for basic shelter/lodging for single men — additional costs would be added on for other services (e.g., medical, case management, etc.,) and/or to get supplies like menstrual products, cribs/baby food, etc.,” Chernawsky wrote in the email, to which she attached the full contract.
“Thank you! This is super helpful,” Pacione-Zayas, a former Democratic state senator, wrote back.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services did not answer specific questions about the context of the exchange, saying only that state and city officials “have had ongoing, general discussions regarding a variety of issues concerning new arrivals and regularly share related information.”
Despite being shown the exchange, DHS spokeswoman Rachel Otwell stood by a September statement in which she told the Tribune the department had played no role in planning for Johnson’s proposed base camps. Otwell did not respond to a request to make Chernaswky available for an interview.
Regardless of Pritzker’s stated preference, the state now is making use of its own contract with GardaWorld to set up a camp, which his administration says would be able to house 2,000 people for stays lasting up to six months.
Neither state nor city officials have provided any information on the proposed location of the camp, with Pritzker telling reporters earlier this month that it would be up to Johnson’s administration to identify the site.
The city, meanwhile, recently began moving migrants out of one of the most crowded police stations and into the city’s 25-shelter system.
