Shuttered Wadsworth School in Woodlawn to Become Temporary Housing for Migrant Asylum Seekers OP-ED

by Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP)

Editor's Note: The Chicago Department of Family and Support Services has announced that it would begin on January 23 moving 250 migrant asylum seekers into the former Wadsworth School, (later a University of Chicago Charter School) at 6420 S. University Ave., where they will remain for up to two years.

CBS2 reported after a January 12 meeting that Woodlawn residents were not anti-migrant, but rather, they were upset that they had not been included in plans from the beginning. They were also concerned about safety issues, which were addressed at the meeting. CBS2 learned about the plan Oct., 24, 2022, but the Mayor’s Office denied it the next day. CBS2 later found a $1.5 million record for environmental, plumbing and other rehab at the school, before its use as an asylum shelter was confirmed in December.

Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) issued the following statement January 13 in an email to media and on its website. https://www.stopchicago.org/news/wadsworth

Recent weeks have been full of confusion for Woodlawn neighbors as Mayor Lightfoot announced, with little notice and no community input, that Wadsworth Elementary—a school closed under Rahm Emanuel—would be converted into a refuge for asylum seekers. These asylum seekers are being sent to Chicago from the U.S./Mexico border in a racist move by Texas governor Greg Abbott. As members of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) and as Woodlawn residents, we clearly see these maneuvers as attempts to pit local Black residents and immigrant communities against one another. This creates the illusion that our dire need for resources is in competition with one another, and distracts us from who is really pulling the strings.

STOP supports asylum seekers, and all those in need of shelter to our neighborhood. Support for asylum seekers requires a more orderly municipal response that includes transparency, community input, resources, and safe and decent facilities. We also recognize that Mayor Lightfoot’s move to convert a closed school into a refuge shelter, after years of local residents demanding it be transformed into something that benefits the community, is a slap in many of our faces. It proves that Mayor Lightfoot has the resources to house, feed, and care for all of Chicago’s residents, but only gives them out when it is politically beneficial, and even then only for the short-term. We want to see investments made into Wadsworth and the larger Woodlawn area that build social safety and economic stability for all our residents for the long haul.

We are concerned about the safety and long term liveability of our neighborhood, but we know the problem is not new residents arriving. The problem is the Mayor’s continuous disinvestment from the South and West Sides, from Black, brown, immigrant, and poor neighborhoods all over Chicago. We also know that safety doesn't come from keeping people out, but from bringing resources in.

We demand #SanctuaryForAll, for Woodlawn residents new and old, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, particularly in this moment of heightened need. Right now we are demanding what we have been demanding: economic development and job training, free and affordable housing, the re-opening of our mental health clinics, well-funded community schools, after-school programs, and other meaningful investments in the Woodlawn community that build real safety and stability well beyond this moment of crisis. As the Mayor invests $1.5 million into the rehab of Wadsworth Elementary, we demand that this investment be the start of turning the space into a community resource that can be used after the asylum seekers leave.

We will not be used as political pawns, and we will not see the same done to our allies seeking asylum. There are more than enough resources to support and protect all Chicagoans, but they will only be made available when we demand them together, united.