Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has dropped a plan to use an empty manufacturing building on the city’s South Side to house illegal aliens after community protests erupted and, perhaps even more troubling, the building’s owners insisted that city hall never told them what they wanted to do with the building.
After word leaked that Johnson wanted to turn a five-story building at 3951 S. Canal St. into a migrant shelter, community activists kicked into action to protest bringing a large number of migrants into their 11th Ward neighborhood.
An even bigger impediment to the plan seems to be that the owners of the building were never told what Johnson intended to do with the empty building.
A spokesperson for Bajaj Medical, the New York-based pharmaceutical company that owns the building, told the Chicago Tribune that they were never informed of Johnson’s migrant housing plans for the property.
“We were surprised to hear news reports of the City’s plan to possibly use our property as a migrant shelter,” the company said in a statement. “Bajaj Medical has not been contacted by City officials, and has not approved, and does not intend to approve any public use of this property.”
The city’s Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) admitted to the Tribune that detailed plans were never relayed to the building owners with whom city officials were hoping to deal. But in a sudden reversal, the department added that City Hall is “no longer considering” using the building for migrant housing.
Alderman Nicole Lee blasted City Hall for its failures, calling the communications issues “pretty shocking.”
“What’s going on? What’s going on that nobody was in touch with the owners?” Lee asked. “This shines a big light and calls into question how this is being managed, and the people that we have working for the city … That just is mind-blowing to me,” she told the Tribune.
Lee blasted the plan over safety issues because the building is in an industrial area surrounded by train tracks. She also slammed the mayor because the South Side shelter plan came about due to the “planned closure of a downtown shelter” scheduled ahead of the Democrat National Convention, which is set to be held in the Windy City in August.
“I was told that the location would need renovations, that they needed to get everything done and ready for a July 1 move-in ahead of the DNC,” Lee explained. “It was pretty disturbing. … It seemed that they were down a path, and I’m hoping that we’ve as a city learned a lot of lessons from all of the experiences in the last year with opening shelters.”
Still, DFSS claimed that it gave Lee early notice about the plans in order to “get feedback,” and contends she was not blindsided by the plans.
Mayor Johnson has been facing increased pushback over his ongoing efforts to take care of the tens of thousands of illegals who have flooded the city.
Several grassroots groups of black residents have formed to oppose Johnson. Many have even taken to wearing red caps with Trump-like slogans on them and threatening to “turn the city red” by voting for independents and Republicans in the face of Johnson’s fealty to illegals.
Since January, city hall has been deluged with disruptions of council meetings as black residents pack the viewing galleries from which they have voiced their staunch opposition to the many migrant housing facilities Johnson keeps opening in their neighborhoods.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
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