Karina Fuentes, from Venezuela, stands near the backyard of her home in Chicago’s New City neighborhood on June 14, 2024. When Fuentes visited with her new caseworker, there was no heat or hot water, emails show. A valve in the basement was leaking and the shower faucet was not installed. She had to wait several more weeks in the hotel room they were staying in before the family might move in. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Last fall’s news mightn’t have come at a better time for Karina Fuentes.
For nearly three months, the 42-year-old Venezuelan migrant had been living in a cramped, musty hotel room in Streeterville with her husband and two children. Space was tight even outside their room at the Inn of Chicago, and the hotel’s common areas were often crowded with hundreds of other migrants from Venezuela who, like them, had walked roughly 5,000 miles in search of a better life. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Fuentes received the email she had been waiting for. Her family had been approved for a relatively new state program that promised to help migrants find apartments. The state would cover up to six months of rent, a key measure to help the city empty its shelters, which had filled up with migrants.
The family of four was able to say goodbye to the Inn of Chicago and take another step toward the American dream. “It was a blessing to own it,” Fuentes recalled. “My children, especially, were very happy.”
Courtesy
CourtesyBut the family would soon learn regarding the program’s slow bureaucracy and harsh realities on the ground. Fuentes, who has a daughter and a husband with serious medical needs, would be offered a series of apartments they deemed uninhabitable. They were among hundreds of immigrants whose rental agreements drew state attention, with dozens of cases so troubling that the state kicked landlords out of the program. State-hired social workers were sometimes forced to rush through paperwork to meet the demand of immigrants who were desperate to get out of crowded shelters in a program that didn’t thoroughly vet properties or landlords.
The state ended up paying rent for months on end for places where no people lived. And even in places where immigrants did live, they were often charged $140 or more above market rate for apartments that immigrants often found uninhabitable in neighborhoods considered among Chicago’s most violent.
At the same time, landlords would say they had little incentive to participate in a program that seemed fraught with risk: State rental assistance was short-term and tenants were mostly unemployed.
Over an 18-month period through June, the state would pay more than $50 million to cover rent for more than 6,000 families and eventually ask dozens of landlords to return more than $620,000 amid complaints that the properties were uninhabitable. Fuentes would have a front-row seat to it all.
Read more at Chicago Tribune
Karina Fuentes, from Venezuela, stands near the backyard of her home in Chicago’s New City neighborhood on June 14, 2024. When Fuentes visited with her new caseworker, there was no heat or hot water, emails show. A valve in the basement was leaking and the shower faucet was not installed. She had to wait several more weeks in the hotel room they were staying in before the family might move in. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Last fall’s news mightn’t have come at a better time for Karina Fuentes.
For nearly three months, the 42-year-old Venezuelan migrant had been living in a cramped, musty hotel room in Streeterville with her husband and two children. Space was tight even outside their room at the Inn of Chicago, and the hotel’s common areas were often crowded with hundreds of other migrants from Venezuela who, like them, had walked roughly 5,000 miles in search of a better life. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Fuentes received the email she had been waiting for. Her family had been approved for a relatively new state program that promised to help migrants find apartments. The state would cover up to six months of rent, a key measure to help the city empty its shelters, which had filled up with migrants.
The family of four was able to say goodbye to the Inn of Chicago and take another step toward the American dream. “It was a blessing to own it,” Fuentes recalled. “My children, especially, were very happy.”
Courtesy
But the family would soon learn regarding the program’s slow bureaucracy and harsh realities on the ground. Fuentes, who has a daughter and a husband with serious medical needs, would be offered a series of apartments they deemed uninhabitable. They were among hundreds of immigrants whose rental agreements drew state attention, with dozens of cases so troubling that the state kicked landlords out of the program. State-hired social workers were sometimes forced to rush through paperwork to meet the demand of immigrants who were desperate to get out of crowded shelters in a program that didn’t thoroughly vet properties or landlords.
The state ended up paying rent for months on end for places where no people lived. And even in places where immigrants did live, they were often charged $140 or more above market rate for apartments that immigrants often found uninhabitable in neighborhoods considered among Chicago’s most violent.
At the same time, landlords would say they had little incentive to participate in a program that seemed fraught with risk: State rental assistance was short-term and tenants were mostly unemployed.
Over an 18-month period through June, the state would pay more than $50 million to cover rent for more than 6,000 families and eventually ask dozens of landlords to return more than $620,000 amid complaints that the properties were uninhabitable. Fuentes would have a front-row seat to it all.
Read more at Chicago Tribune
