Chicago City Wire

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration signed a nearly $30 million contract to establish temporary winterized tent cities to house migrants currently finding shelter at city police stations and Midway and O'Hare airports.

The one-year deal with GardaWorld Federal Services LLC calls for setting up soft-material yurt-like structures big enough for 12 sleeping cots in winterized base camps.

The city's contract will piggyback on the state's $125 million deal with GardaWorld that calls for providing a "turn-key emergency management operation with emergency logistic support services to set up shelter, food, housing, sanitary services, security, etc."

The migrant encampments would include portable restrooms and kitchens. Details about how the temporary structures will be heated were not available.

GardaWorld, according to the state contract, also is required to provide: segregated sleeping areas, bedding and linens, lockable storage for each bed, drinking water, waste removal, laundry and cleaning services, child care, basic mental health services and three meals a day. The encampments will have fencing, interior and exterior lights, unarmed security, internet and cell phone service.

So far, City Hall has not publicly identified where the migrant tent cities will be located other than a dilapidated shopping center parking lot at 115th and Halsted Street in West Pullman.

Some neighbors have expressed outrage over plans to setting up a migrant camp in the poor, far South Side neighborhood.

Mayor Johnson has said in a statement that contracting with GardaWorld through the state contract "enables the City to stand up the base camps expeditiously, and more quickly move new arrivals from Chicago Police Department district stations as the weather begins to change.”

Denver's mayor pulled plans to hire GardaWorld to build migrant camps there in response to concerns from migrant advocacy groups including the American Friends Service Committee.

“They’re a company that is clearly not ethical … and they don’t have a good track record of caring for vulnerable people,” AFSC Colorado director Jennifer Piper told the Tribune. “So if I were a Chicago resident, I would be very concerned about the treatment and the conditions for people inside shelters run by GardaWorld.”