Migrants start moving into former Marine Corps facility on Foster Avenue

Update: Migrants have started moving into the former Marine Corp Reserve Training Center at 3034 W. Foster Ave., which the city of Chicago recently acquired and is turning into a temporary housing shelter. The shelter reportedly will be able to accommodate about 550 people. Below is an article on the issue which was first published on Sept. 2.

by BRIAN NADIG

The city of Chicago is looking to buy a former Marine Corp Reserve Center, 3034 W. Foster Ave., for about $1.5 million to use as a temporary shelter for migrants, but Alderman Samantha Nugent (39th) said that she hopes it can be eventually be converted into a park district or early childhood education facility.

In the short-term the property can help address the “humanitarian crisis” the city is facing and get migrant families off of police station lobby floors and into a more appropriate setting, Nugent said. Earlier this week there were about 80 people living at the 16th (Jefferson Park) Police District Station, 5151 N. Milwaukee Ave.

The U.S. Marines was leasing the center on Foster from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and most recently the facility had been used by the U.S. Navy for training, but it has gone unused for months, Nugent said. MWRD commissioners recently approved the sale of the property to the city, and the City Council is expected to approve the purchase later this month.

The center, which includes a gymnasium and a kitchen, sits on a 10-acre parcel that has been poorly maintained, and the anticipated sale has provided the city with an opportunity to clean up site and address residents’ safety concerns, Nugent said.

City agencies recently worked to remove a homeless encampment on the MWRD parcel, providing resources and housing services, Nugent said. There has been issues with fires and drug use stemming from the encampment, which was located next to the athletic fields of Northside College Prep High School, Nugent said.

Many area residents and Northside parents had raised concerns about the encampment, Nugent said.

The site is located in a section of Budlong Woods that was recently remapped into the 39th Ward.

Nugent said that she first learned about the encampment while knocking on doors during her aldermanic campaign earlier this year and talking to residents.

Tentative plans call for migrants, reportedly several hundred, to start relocating to the center later this month.

Editor’s note: The following is a Sept. 13 article on plans to start housing migrants in winterized tents:

The mayoral administration is asking alderpersons to identify two-plus acre sites in their ward where large tents can be installed for migrants, but suitable locations on the Northwest Side could be hard to find, according to Alderman Nicholas Sposato (38th).

“There’s no big vacant lots with at least two acres on the Northwest Side, (and) they said … they’re  not going to be using schools and parks,” Sposato said.

The South and West sides have the largest amount of vacant land, but some of the alderpersons and community groups in those areas have already pushed back on opening migrant centers in their neighborhoods, Sposato said.

“It’s a total cluster,” Sposato said, adding that the Biden administration is not addressing the problem. “This is just the tip of the iceberg (for Chicago). It’s only going to get worse.”

The tents would be heated for the winter.

By the end of this year the city reportedly will have spent more than $250 million on housing and other resources for migrants, a larger number of who are from South America and are being either bused or flown from Texas to Chicago.

The city is planning to purchase a former Marine Corps Reserve Center, 3034 W. Foster Ave., for about $1.5 million to use as a temporary shelter for migrants. The center sits on a 10-acre parcel, which currently is owned by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

Currently thousands of migrants are living in police station lobbies and at O’Hare Airport.

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