(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Migrants who are currently staying at city-run shelters will get nearly two extra months to find new housing, under the latest deadline extension announced by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The Johnson Administration said Monday that most of the more than 14,000 new arrivals now in shelters will have until March to relocate. They had been obligated to move on within 60 days, but city officials have been adjusting eviction dates, in part because of recent cold weather in Chicago.
Also, several Chicago City Council members had urged Johnson to waive the eviction policy.
Johnson stressed that city shelters were never meant to be permanent.
“The whole point of this operation was designed around a broader strategy,” he said. “This is temporary emergency shelter. It is not meant for long-term shelter.”
The first migrants to be affected by the city's original shelter-stay limit would have been forced out starting Thursday of this week.
Moving forward, new arrivals who come to Chicago will be under the original 60-day time limit at city shelters, a Johnson aide told reporters.
Also Monday, Johnson said caring for Chicago's new arrivals is costing the city at least $1.5 million daily, and he again called on the federal government for assistance.
City officials say 35,000 migrants or asylum seekers have come through Chicago since states on the U.S. Southern Border, especially Texas, began sending them to so-called sanctuary cities in 2022.
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