Evanston’s mayor wants to convert a vacant building into housing for migrants

Zubaer Khan/Sun-Times

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss wants his City Council’s blessing to apply for funding from Cook County government to help migrants.

Biss wants to take advantage of $20 million the county has made available to suburbs that want to support migrants. The idea is to rent a vacant two-story office building near downtown Evanston and transform it into a transitional shelter. The space could have room for about 60 to 65 migrants.

“It breaks my heart that it feels like a drop in the bucket,” said Alison Leipsiger, policy coordinator for Evanston. “But also these are 60 people who need a place to stay.”

The building near Church Street and Oak Avenue needs some work — a fire sprinkler system, more showers and bathroom stalls and mold remediation, documents show. A nonprofit would need to manage the shelter, and using the space when government funds run out could be tough, Leipsiger separately outlined in a memo to Biss and City Council members.

“On the one hand, this could be an asset to the City as we see increased migration for climate or other reasons,” the memo says. “On the other hand, it could place meaningful strain on the City.”

There won’t be a formal vote, but given the stakes Biss and city staff are looking for guidance from the City Council on Monday night.

“We really want buy-in,” Biss said — not just from City Council, but from the community.

More than 38,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago, often bused from the Texas border, since August of 2022. The city has been the epicenter of where migrants have sheltered and received services.

Late last year, Cook County dangled a carrot for suburbs to play a bigger role by creating a $100 million disaster response and recovery fund largely to help migrants. About $20 million of that fund is earmarked for suburbs to apply for in grants.

The money can be spent on everything from shelter and short-term rental assistance to food provided in shelters and wrap-around services. Those services include helping connect migrants to transportation, enroll their kids in school and help them apply for public benefits, according to the county.

So far there’s been little appetite from suburban leaders. In a county with more than 100 municipalities, only Oak Park has applied for funding, the county confirmed. The west suburb received about $365,000 to cover their expenses providing food and shelter for migrants, according to the county and Oak Park’s application.

Evanston is still mulling how much money to apply for, Leipsiger said. That would cover not just the proposed transitional housing in the vacant office building, but also to provide funding for community organizations to help migrants with rent subsidies and legal services, for example. Evanston has approached Connections for the Homeless to run the shelter, which might cost around $2 million a year, Leipsiger’s memo said.

In her memo to City Council, she also outlined how the Civic Center would soon be vacant and that could be an alternative to housing migrants. The tradeoffs, she wrote: the center could house more than 65 people and Evanston already owns the building. But like the vacant office building, the center has many needs, including a sprinkler system, proper fire exits and showers.

Kristen Schorsch covers public health and Cook County government for WBEZ.