From November 2023 to June 2024, Oak Park will have spent $2.489 million on its migrant response, and the village has, or expects to be, reimbursed for all but about $352,000 of those expenditures.
The village has spent $2.276 million on its asylum seeker response up until now, and anticipates another $213,000 to be expensed from grant money through June. Those costs are associated with legal services, resettlement costs and administrative services.
All of the migrants in Oak Park’s care have been resettled into stable housing since early April. Community of Congregations housed 201 migrants since the village started providing support in late October 2023.
Records show that trustees designated or were granted funds for asylum-seeker response efforts from local, state and county funds.
Local funds came from unspent American Rescue Plan Act dollars and the village’s general fund. The village allocated $650,000 in local funds for migrant response, the last of which was to resettle 17 migrants at Euclid Avenue United Methodist Church.
Of that $650,000, $450,000 was used to fund resettlement efforts through a contract with the Community of Congregations. The State of Illinois committed to reimburse Oak Park for $200,000 in fiscal year 2025.
Village staff have not yet identified a reimbursement opportunity for the other $250,000 spent on resettlement, but will continue to pursue options, according to a memorandum from Kira Tchang, the village’s human resources director. The goal is to return any unspent funds from that $650,000 to the general fund, Tchang told Wednesday Journal.
“There is, I think, some confusion in the community that … every single penny will be reimbursed,” Trustee Lucia Robinson said at the April 30 board meeting. “We’re not even close to being reimbursed for every penny.”
State funds include two Supporting Municipalities for Asylum Seeker Services grants. Cook County funds come from Disaster Response and Recovery Fund dollars. If the latest application is approved, additional DRRF funds would allow Oak Park to be reimbursed for some migrant services including food and shelter at the Oak Park Family Transitional Shelter at St. Edmund School. The combined total of state and county grants is $2,836,011.59, according to the memorandum, excluding the latest DRRF application. Not all of that money was spent.
Oak Park was granted $2,070,750 to provide legal services, temporary shelter through the Oak Park Family Transitional Shelter, short-term rental assistance and administrative services through the second SMASS grant. This is included in the more than $2.8 million total for grants. The village only spent about $761,000 of that grant before all the migrants were resettled.
The village’s temporary shelter program, which existed at The Carleton of Oak Park Hotel, the West Cook YMCA and Grace Episcopal Church, cost a total of $964,443.41. Out of that total, all but about $102,000 has been reimbursed either through the state or county.
That amount, about $102,000, was spent in November 2023, before the Cook County’s fiscal year started on Dec. 1. So, it was not eligible for reimbursement from the county or state, Tchang said. That, plus the $250,000 in local funds that have not had a reimbursement source identified, totals about $352,000 that the village has not been reimbursed for in its asylum seeker response.
The village will submit additional expenses for reimbursement through May and June, Tchang said, including for legal services and administrative services. Any funds not expensed in this process will remain with the state, she said.
“With that $352,000 [not reimbursed], we’ve been able to provide temporary shelter for a period of five months and then resettle a significant population of migrants for the period of a year,” Trustee Brian Straw said. “That seems to be an incredible achievement.”
