Immigrant families who received 60-day notices will have to vacate their temporary shelter at the Row hotel.
Yeisi Zerpa and her four children are one of these families.
“Let them help us even if it’s just as a room, even if it’s the children because one manages to survive but with those children how can you not stay on the street with those children.”
City officials confirmed Monday that around 40 families will have to leave the Row Hotel by Tuesday morning.
They added that as of Dec. 31, approximately 4,400 families with children received a 60-day notice.
According to them, these families have had at least four meetings with city employees to help them relocate. But some mothers claim that this has not happened.
“They simply told me that I had to vacate and I told her like that and the girl told me that she didn’t know she didn’t know so that wasn’t her problem,” says Yeisi Zerpa.
Families who have not secured permanent housing since receiving notification can return to the Roosevelt Hotel and request shelter.
A situation that has become difficult, since according to these mothers, added to this is the fact that they do not receive food.
“How can it be possible that one, as an immigrant, as a Venezuelan, has to go out on the street to ask for a plate of food to be able to give the children truth,” asks Ligia Zerpa.
They say that without work permits they feel their hands are tied. Such is the case of Nina Burga, who has been arrested twice for going out to sell fruit with her little one.
“I have simply thought what is going to happen to my son because they have told me that they can take my son away from me.”
The city is offering them tickets to travel to other states but Génesis Rivero says he tried to settle in Chicago without success.
“I felt alone and living in a shelter my spine already hurt from sleeping on a stretcher so much,” says Nina Burga.
Meanwhile, activists and officials who defend immigrants united in the mayor’s office to denounce this rule.
“Can you imagine a family of three, four, five people that already has stability in a school in a specific location, that is not fair to have this change.”
Mayor Adams once again highlighted the need for a federal solution to the problems at the border, and calls on Congress to recognize the urgency of immigration reform.
