CHICAGO | General Discussions

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by ianconnor

Honestly, Chicago should be happy about this whole migrant crisis. Steely Dan is 100% right, the black population in this city is straight up plummeting, the white population is stagnant, its this hispanic/asian growth that has allowed this city to record SOME type of growth. Chicago has been one of the SLOWEST growing cities in the countries for years now. Not enough people coming in to fill in the absolute dissolution of the south/west sides. The city's population probably increased more in these past 2-3 years with these migrants than it had the past 10 years.

Turn Englewood into Little Venuzuela. Crime will go down too. Chicago could use more tasty venzuelan restaurants too.

The difference between Chicago and all the other rust belt cities of the Midwest is that Hispanics established a large community here and nowhere else.

It would have been such a disaster to miss out on Mexican migration just because they weren’t the idealized immigrants of their era and a lot of them needed government services. A half-abandoned Chicago would have been heartbreaking.

Twiddling our thumbs and hoping for some surge in new white or black residents is a fool’s errand. The non-immigrant population of both has already peaked in the U.S., and their state and city migration habits are mostly set in stone.


Most of the Venezuelans aren’t uneducated subsistence farmers with zero skills. A lot of them had normal lives as shopkeepers, accountants, artists and other regular city jobs before their country collapsed

[sentinel]

I am an immigrant, but no one would know unless I told them because I arrived in the US when I was four years old, and I'm white. I support immigrant, migrant and refugees from all over the world to the US, because as much as there are opportunities here for a better life than from most places where displaced people come from, it also benefits our country in the long-term as well. As Americans, we are and also will be a melting pot of different cultures and races, and it is just an axiom of our existence that we will always be perfecting and refining our society as Americans because of that open attitude, regardless of what partisan political bullshit tries to prevent. Change and re-adjustment are unavoidable and inevitable. Period. Looking at so many other 'first-world'/highly advanced countries around the world, many have declining birth rates because of their policies towards immigration. East Asia suffers the most in this regard, but it's occurring in any advanced sovereign country that has very restrictive immigration policies.

Now, the question becomes how can the process of handling incoming migrants be properly funded, organized, streamlined and made far more efficient, so that anyone who wants to be here can be here, but also be assimilated and essentially indoctrinated to feel that they can eventually feel like Americans much sooner than later. Right now, the system is very inefficient, but the sheer number of incoming migrants, immigrants and refuges will force the federal government's hand a lot sooner than many anticipate.

[Via Chicago]

while its possible this could benefit the city over a generation or two, theres no question that this crisis has the ability to absolutely crush our already abysmal financial position without massive massive intervention from the feds. all this talk about a Little Venezuela is nice, but reality is that there isnt this abundance of ready to move in housing that will also be affordable for people on meager to no earnings/savings. who also have at the moment zero assimilation into broader society. rents on the south side of Chicago may be "cheap" to your average forumer here looking at it from an average US big city perspective, but its still wholly unaffordable to the average migrant arriving here and that wont be changing anytime soon. also most housing is actually occupied, there isnt this supposed overabundance of ready to move in units, priced for someone making at or below minimum wage. the homes that are "empty" are abandoned/on the verge of teardown, and will need hundreds of thousands to make them habitable. if they are rehabbed, then as you all know they will not be priced at the former rock bottom rates. this means we are facing a nearly permanent tent city situation in every neighborhood, which will only continue to balloon and expand and drain resources. warehouses are filling up the second theyre identified by the city.

the issue is the timing for the asylum hearings. that entire infrastructure needs to be beefed up to the degree that it can happen almost simultaneously with arrival. theres zero reason this should be getting drawn out for 2-3 years.

[Randomguy34]

For folks who like combing through data, the city has a data portal that updates weekly to track the total number of migrants, how many are living in each shelter, country of origin, etc.

Data portal: https://40thward.org/cirr/

[Coastal Elitist]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

while its possible this could benefit the city over a generation or two, theres no question that this crisis has the ability to absolutely crush our already abysmal financial position without massive massive intervention from the feds. all this talk about a Little Venezuela is nice, but reality is that there isnt this abundance of ready to move in housing that will also be affordable for people on meager to no earnings/savings. who also have at the moment zero assimilation into broader society. rents on the south side of Chicago may be "cheap" to your average forumer here looking at it from an average US big city perspective, but its still wholly unaffordable to the average migrant arriving here and that wont be changing anytime soon. also most housing is actually occupied, there isnt this supposed overabundance of ready to move in units, priced for someone making at or below minimum wage. the homes that are "empty" are abandoned/on the verge of teardown, and will need hundreds of thousands to make them habitable. if they are rehabbed, then as you all know they will not be priced at the former rock bottom rates. this means we are facing a nearly permanent tent city situation in every neighborhood, which will only continue to balloon and expand and drain resources. warehouses are filling up the second theyre identified by the city.

the issue is the timing for the asylum hearings. that entire infrastructure needs to be beefed up to the degree that it can happen almost simultaneously with arrival. theres zero reason this should be getting drawn out for 2-3 years.

The minimum wage for small employers in Chicago is $15/hr. Working 40 hours per week for 52 weeks in a year would yield $31,200 in gross income for the year. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development considers someone to be rent burdened if they are spending more than 30% of their gross income on rent, so let's use 30% of $31,200 as the limit for what someone making that much can afford on rent, which comes out to be $9,360 per year or $780 per month.

For rent on Zillow right now, there are...

53 studios for $780 or less,
35 1BRs for $780 or less,
1,199 2BRs for $1,560 or less,
953 3BRs for $2,340 or less,
211 4BRs for $3,120 or less,
and 51 5+BRs for $3,900 or less.

For sale on Zillow right now, with no down payment and considering the all-in PIMI monthly payment, there are...

8 1BRs for $750 or less,
121 2BRs for $1,500 or less,
345 3BRs for $2,250 or less,
472 4BRs for $3,150 or less,
and 699 5+BRs for $3,875 or less.

Also, this assumes that there is a limit of 1 person per bedroom, which doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I think we have plenty of affordable housing for them.

[Via Chicago]

In 2023 7.71 million people left Venezeula. Only 500,000 came to the US due in part to our immigration restrictions.

We have about 200,000 refugees from Nicuragua living in the US illegally.....and about 150,000 more fled this year.

Add in the millions of refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan....people leaving El Salvador and Guatamala...

Just to put that number in perspective Chicago is struggling with just 14,000 refugees.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by Coastal Elitist

The minimum wage for small employers in Chicago is $15/hr. Working 40 hours per week for 52 weeks in a year would yield $31,200 in gross income for the year. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development considers someone to be rent burdened if they are spending more than 30% of their gross income on rent, so let's use 30% of $31,200 as the limit for what someone making that much can afford on rent, which comes out to be $9,360 per year or $780 per month.

For rent on Zillow right now, there are...

53 studios for $780 or less,
35 1BRs for $780 or less,
1,199 2BRs for $1,560 or less,
953 3BRs for $2,340 or less,
211 4BRs for $3,120 or less,
and 51 5+BRs for $3,900 or less.

For sale on Zillow right now, with no down payment and considering the all-in PIMI monthly payment, there are...

8 1BRs for $750 or less,
121 2BRs for $1,500 or less,
345 3BRs for $2,250 or less,
472 4BRs for $3,150 or less,
and 699 5+BRs for $3,875 or less.

Also, this assumes that there is a limit of 1 person per bedroom, which doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I think we have plenty of affordable housing for them.

in a city of 230 sq miles/2.7M population this level of inventory is tremendously low. there is always turnover. but the rental vacancy rate is something like 5-6% (someone here probably has the exact number), and SFH is around 2%. this is near historic lows. if you throw tens of thousands of additional people in at the lower end of the ladder, its only going to increase rents further. this isnt even getting into where those units are located/whether thats near given employment opportunities or good public transit, etc. how does healthcare get managed for these people once they start flooding already strained ER rooms? how does school/education funding get managed? classroom sizes/resources for kids who dont speak english and may be nowhere near their actual grade level? Also not getting into the fact that if you throw a ton of low wage workers into a pool of labor that the existing labor pool will see their wages stagnate, thus finding it even more difficult to keep on top of those rising costs and becoming further rent burdened

[Kngkyle]

If the government would just get out of its own way and let these legal immigrants (most are here legally - pending their asylum hearing) get a job then they could support themselves instead of becoming dependent on scarce local government resources.

[Via Chicago]

again, it should all be managed at the border. if you are coming here under an asylum claim but actually are really an economic migrant, those are different things. now we can have the conversation if we as a society want hundreds of thousands (or millions) of new economic migrants with few restrictions, but that should be managed separately. likewise, asylum cases need to be speed up drastically so that we dont have this situation where local governments need to be expending resources to house them (or impacting local economies by suppressing wages for local workers outside of thresholds society has already agreed to)

the reality is the old legacy systems erected to deal with these issues are wholly inadequate for the current situation and the corresponding volume. oh and we're also barreling towards a govt shut down - that should do wonders

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

also most housing is actually occupied, there isnt this supposed overabundance of ready to move in units, priced for someone making at or below minimum wage. the homes that are "empty" are abandoned/on the verge of teardown, and will need hundreds of thousands to make them habitable. if they are rehabbed, then as you all know they will not be priced at the former rock bottom rates. this means we are facing a nearly permanent tent city situation in every neighborhood, which will only continue to balloon and expand and drain resources. warehouses are filling up the second theyre identified by the city.

And yet, the lower vacancies are because of the overall Hispanic influx.

There are several blocks that would be facing abandonment this very moment without them.

It’s not realistic to say, “Oh hey, Venezuelans, we’re going to really need you in 3-5 years, but not yet. The baby boomers aren’t quite ready to depart. Why don’t you wait over by the border until then.”

You don’t have to be CPS to look at Chicago’s birth tallies and realize that there are real imminent population losses coming down the chute, and that several neighborhood housing markets are disproportionately supported by retirees.

There’s nowhere near enough college grads arriving to willing or able to make up for the losses in those neighborhoods.


Here’s my predictions-
-Chicago is definitely going to be dealing with refugee camp conditions for many years.

-Tens of thousands of the migrants will be getting under the table and minimum wage jobs and pair up with larger groups to afford the cheapest apartments.

-They move into apartments at a much faster rate than expected, because a lot of the local demographic trends are already determined.

-Too many retirees. Too many parents who want suburban homes

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

The difference between Chicago and all the other rust belt cities of the Midwest is that Hispanics established a large community here and nowhere else.

While most of the rust belt largely missed out on "the great Mexican migration", Chicago wasn't the only such city to benefit.

Milwaukee proper is roughly 20% Latino (~3/4 of which are of Mexican ancestry) as of 2020, which isn't that far behind Chicago, and considerably higher than its peers.

I mean, the Mexicans of Milwaukee even got their own sausage (chorizo) included in the sausage races at Miller Park, which is of course the hallmark signifier that your ethnic group has officially arrived.

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

this isnt even getting into where those units are located/whether thats near given employment opportunities or good public transit, etc. how does healthcare get managed for these people once they start flooding already strained ER rooms? how does school/education funding get managed? classroom sizes/resources for kids who dont speak english and may be nowhere near their actual grade level? Also not getting into the fact that if you throw a ton of low wage workers into a pool of labor that the existing labor pool will see their wages stagnate, thus finding it even more difficult to keep on top of those rising costs and becoming further rent burdened

Somehow all of these things have been managed every time the city has seen a large new "migrant" community enter. We had huge influxes of African American migrants during the 2 Great Migrations. We have absorbed a string of largely low-education immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, and Mexico.

I think the onus is on you to explain why this time will be different. I expect there will be a few years of upheaval and increased tenement housing. Then, the city will find it's equilibrium again. Probably just in time for the next wave of migrants. Those could be climate migrants, Chinese immigrants, African immigrants (Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia), another country that falls apart from within like Venezuela, or any other group of people.

This is the story of global cities, we shouldn't fear it.

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by moorhosj1

Somehow all of these things have been managed every time the city has seen a large new "migrant" community enter. We had huge influxes of African American migrants during the 2 Great Migrations. We have absorbed a string of largely low-education immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, and Mexico.

I think the onus is on you to explain why this time will be different. I expect there will be a few years of upheaval and increased tenement housing. Then, the city will find it's equilibrium again. Probably just in time for the next wave of migrants. Those could be climate migrants, Chinese immigrants, African immigrants (Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia), another country that falls apart from within like Venezuela, or any other group of people.

This is the story of global cities, we shouldn't fear it.

Precisely.

The scale of this is preposterously minute in any reasonable broader historical or geographic context. And this isn't to say that previous migrations weren't also blown out of proportion at the time by xenophobic nativists, white nationalists, and other such pond scum. But, I really do think there is something to the present day's Fox news/right wing media-social media disinformation and propaganda ecosystem blowing the present drop in the bucket even further out of proportion. Could be wrong.....yet I think likely not.

[Via Chicago]

living standards were also massively different a century+ ago. its no longer acceptable for people to be living in shacks they built in two days with dirt floors and no indoor plumbing, with no code of any kind. basically squatting on land that isnt even incorporated. with no modern medicine available and rampant disease. there is no longer appetite to build/operate public housing even for our own citizens. ya'll are constantly doomsdaying our tax burden and debt - and yet hand waving this away?

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

Precisely.

The scale of this is preposterously minute in any reasonable broader historical or geographic context. And this isn't to say that previous migrations weren't also blown out of proportion at the time by xenophobic nativists, white nationalists, and other such pond scum. But, I really do think there is something to the present day's Fox news/right wing media-social media disinformation and propaganda ecosystem blowing the present drop in the bucket even further out of proportion. Could be wrong.....yet I think likely not.

when was the last time we needed outdoor tent cities and 20+ shelters (not even counting police stations etc)to house incoming migrants? by tomorrow what we have already allocated will be spoken for. and the same for every day after that that this volume continues. its absurd to suggest this isnt a different scale that any other modern comparison

also the difference to a large extent is social media. decades ago people werent looking at tiktok and hearing about how X city is treating them better than Y city, telling everyone to go there. where rumors, propaganda, and everything in between can spread like wildfire. theres a big difference between a steady trickle of immigrants coming over years/decades which allows time for support structures and neighborhoods to gradually be built up, and hundreds of thousands all coming at once. this is repeated in basically every piece of reporting on the issue, where current arrivals have no clue where to go or what to do. as opposed to previous groups in the late 20th century where they already probably had a crash pad lined up, work, and social groups waiting for them

meanwhile we are spending $7k per migrant...per month. this could easily be a billion dollar expenditure next year. whats the plan for that continuing indefinitely exactly? you are already seeing how the black south side is reacting to this issue with migrants being put in their communities and "taking" their already under allocated resources. its about to get way uglier than it already is.

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

when was the last time we needed outdoor tent cities and 20+ shelters (not even counting police stations etc)to house incoming migrants? by tomorrow what we have already allocated will be spoken for. and the same for every day after that that this volume continues. its absurd to suggest this isnt a different scale that any other modern comparison

It is different in that these people are seeking asylum, so they have to wait for their legal case to play out. They essentially can't earn a living until then. For that reason, we are on the hook to house and feed them until they have a hearing. Hopefully, the administration figures that piece out and recent moves suggest it might get better. However, 15,000 people in a year shouldn't be the armageddon event it is being portrayed in the media.

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

also the difference to a large extent is social media. decades ago people werent looking at tiktok and hearing about how X city is treating them better than Y city, telling everyone to go there. where rumors, propaganda, and everything in between can spread like wildfire.

This also comes into play with the crime discussion. There may actually be fewer robberies today than 10 years ago, but the Citizen App didn't exist until 2017. We didn't hear about every firework, loud boom, and package thief because people were actually living their lives rather than doom-scrolling about local crime.

[Via Chicago]

my point isnt so much that social media is being used to distort the issue (although it can be), but rather that the migrants themselves are actively using social media to help them determine where to go. and someone saying "things are great here!" can literally induce a flood of people to decide to come. which may not comport with reality once they show up. you now have cities like Denver shipping people here, not just border states. and very soon NY is going to start suggesting migrants come here as well (if not actively busing them). theres no way a single municipal government can deal with this issue single handedly. the scale is way beyond what most here are giving it credit for, and theres no plan to actually deal with it beyond emergency triage, which is a permanent state of chaos.

[Handro]

I just read Chicago: City of the Century--an absolutely fantastic book about Chicago from its founding through the end of the 19th century (highly recommend it). It is such an inspirational reminder of how Chicago was built on top of unbuildable swamp (twice!), it is so sad to see this absolute miracle of a city fall so far that we now struggle with a few thousand migrants. Where are the bold leaders? Of course there are many, many more humanitarian and economic considerations in 2023 than there were in, say, 1880, but damn if this city doesn't do anything but make little plans now.

Doesn't the city have like 20,000 vacant lots in its possession? And aren't there several companies putting up inexpensive modular homes right now in different corners of the city? And aren't there thousands more derelict buildings/units across the city? And aren't there staffing shortages in both the public and private sector for entry level and unskilled jobs?

I dunno, I'm an idiot throwing shit against the wall with admittedly little understanding of all of legal and financial constraints and I certainly don't have specific ideas. It just seems like Chicago is once again in a unique position to boldly take on a seemingly unsolvable problem. I don't see our provincial mayor as the one to take it on but maybe he can surprise me.

[Via Chicago]

the US dosent have a labor shortage. it has a wage shortage. want people to take your shitty job? pay them more.

the city IS trying to build on those vacant lots, at least to a small extent. and even that is mired in delays and cost over runs

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/7/...ays-city-rules

Townsell doesn’t mince words. While he said he’d like to have 200 homes started by now, only 18 are in various stages of construction, with two sold and contracts on four others. They are mostly around 16th Street and Avers Avenue and 18th Street and Sawyer Avenue.

He said the hold up is from all types of municipal red tape over the properties, even though the transfer of city-owned land should be easier than private-market dealings for parcels with liens and back taxes.

“This is really about a city that has no urgency when it comes to working families,” Townsell said.



Two years ago, Townsell was aiming to sell the homes for around $220,000. He had to raise that to $250,000. He said his costs are about $310,000 per lot, despite getting $1-per-parcel land from the city. Townsell’s group has backing from the state and has $17.5 million in construction loans from banks and foundations. He’d like to get it to $25 million.

While he won’t blame individuals, he clearly has problems with people in top-level city jobs. “The city is spending too much time on fluffy things — issues of design and policy,” he said. “It is not built around production. It is built around policy wonk ideas, and as a result nothing gets done.”

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

my point isnt so much that social media is being used to distort the issue (although it can be), but rather that the migrants themselves are actively using social media to help them determine where to go. and someone saying "things are great here!" can literally induce a flood of people to decide to come. which may not comport with reality once they show up. you now have cities like Denver shipping people here, not just border states. and very soon NY is going to start suggesting migrants come here as well (if not actively busing them). theres no way a single municipal government can deal with this issue single handedly. the scale is way beyond what most here are giving it credit for, and theres no plan to actually deal with it beyond emergency triage, which is a permanent state of chaos.

There are growth cities in the US getting more thsn 15K people per year net influx. It is definitely hard to handle but again, it can be done and even Chicago has handled it.

As far as another post of yours goes - as has been discussed here before, cities wouldn't have to pick up the tab if the feds actually authorized work. Instead, they're forced to wait MONTHS to even have a shot. At the end of the day, we have all these people and from a humanity.perspective you aren't going to let them freeze and starve just because the feds can't authorize work in a timely manner and let them earn their own living. What the Biden administration did is extremely important. If done properly it means cities like Chicago and NYC can scale back the amount of money they need to spend to make sure these people looking for a much better life don't literally starve or turn to crime to make money to feed themselves.

75+ years ago again, thr government didn't handcuff work permits. People like my family could instantly work, legally. There were private aid organizations set up and life was hard for many, but local governments didn't have to foot the bill.

The consideration now is getting housing built FAST (or reutilized) especially once many cam work and afford to Hopefully support themselves to an extent. That's another story though. Hopefully something can be done. I think we have way more government handcuffed these days than 75 years ago which in this particular type of situation can come back to bite.