* According to a document from the City of Chicago, 284 asylum-seekers arrived at staging centers during the week ending this past Friday. That’s up a bit from the 214 who arrived the previous week.

* WTTW on the 60-day shelter limit policy…

Annie Gomberg, a lead organizer with the Police Station Response Team who has been on the ground aiding migrants, said there’s a lot of confusion about the policy and the process of what happens next.

“Not everybody is going to be able to access state vouchers for housing,” Gomberg said, “and when you do not have the capacity to work and you don’t have resources to put yourself into your own apartment, when you have children that are in school, and all of the illness and injury and other things as well as the trauma of this journey, that’s a lot for people to have to unpack.”

Jessica Darrow, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, has been studying refugee resettlement for years and said this current humanitarian crisis stems from decades of disinvestment in low-income housing.

“Accessing housing is a lot more complicated than a policy that ideally gives people rental assistance, or even saying that landlords can’t discriminate based on a national immigration status,” Darrow said. “The fact is, we do have a city that does not have nearly enough low-income housing and people will not be able to find apartments unless they can also find work, which means they have to have work authorization. There’s so many steps that are really out of the control of this city’s administration and really out of control of volunteers. We’ve got people working so hard to plug holes that are then constantly flooding again.”

* In other news, Ald. Raymond Lopez has put the migrant issue front and center as he attempts to generate news media coverage for his congressional campaign against US Rep. Chuy Garcia. How’s that campaign going so far? Lynn Sweet…

Lopez:

Contributions: $46,343

Operating expenses $14,920

Cash-on-hand: $31,422

According to his filing, half of his operating expenses went to a single consultant.

Chuy Garcia’s numbers…

Garcia:

Contributions: $336,637

Operating expenses: $227,532

Cash-on-hand: $202,798.42

* Speaking of Garcia…

Dozens of people rallied in Chicago Saturday for a solution to the city’s migrant crisis.

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights held its annual summit in Pilsen.

Community groups, activists and labor unions joined together calling for solidarity and support for migrants.

“We are way overdue in creating a system of migration rooted in compassion and in justice,” said U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Illinois).

* From Isabel…

* CBS Chicago | Chicago suburb receives nearly $2 million to run shelter for migrants: The money allows [Oak Park] to operate its temporary shelter program. Some of the funds will go to a local nonprofit so it can operate a new temporary shelter at a former Catholic school through the end of June. Other money will be used for legal services to help migrants with their applications for asylum.

* Pioneer Press | Oak Park given $1.9M more to aid migrants, plans new single-site shelter at former Catholic school building: The money had been sought to help Oak Park continue to provide services to nearly 200 migrants — most, if not all, of whom arrived in the village after being at the 15th District Chicago Police Department station in the city’s Austin neighborhood at the border with Oak Park.

* Block Club | El Árbol Mutual Aid Group Opens Free Store In Logan Square For Migrants, Neighbors: The store opened Wednesday with about 25 people coming by to take advantage of the free items, said Daniel Orkin, a lead volunteer and El Árbol organizer. While it’s mostly geared for migrants, the store is open to anyone in the neighborhood who needs free winter items or personal items, Orkin said.

* Tribune | A Chicago man offers housing and community to hundreds of migrants: Joselin Mendoza sleeps on the floor of a cold stone basement with her two kids at a house in Roseland. The two-story house has no furniture and 22 other migrants from Venezuela sleep on mattresses or blankets on the floor. Their clothes and stuffed animals are stacked in neat piles nearby. The property’s owner Chris Amatore came by in a truck one day in January and offered her the chance to leave a city-run shelter before she and her family were kicked out. […] He has now resettled close to 500 migrants in 15 buildings around the city, spending $150,000 of his own money, he said. Amatore’s solution isn’t a long-term fix — for himself or the migrants, who are grateful for the vacant buildings they now call home.

* The Oregonian | Oregon spent $29 million to house asylum seekers. Then it shut down the program: The state of Oregon quietly launched and then abandoned a $29 million initiative to provide hotel accommodations, food and housing for immigrants seeking asylum, effectively ending the fledgling program Dec. 31 with no clear plan for how to help families who arrive in the future.