Chicago-area retiree opens home to migrants — ‘new family members’ — stuck at police stations

A retiree with terminal cancer, Elaine Pierce made a cocoon in her home, surrounding herself with her daughter, books and movies.

It was a solitude she needed, yet she gave it up recently for something more important — to help families in crisis, opening her Oak Park bungalow to migrant families without a home.

“I only wish I could do more,” Pierce told the Sun-Times.

The 68-year-old suburbanite’s kindness is exactly what Chicago needs more of to turn the migrant crisis into an opportunity, advocates say.

It’s a big lift for the former Concordia University worker, who opened her home without assistance from the city or state, covering any extra expenses almost entirely on her own. But for migrants, it spares them a possibly lengthy, uncomfortable stay at a police station before a city shelter.

For the mother of two, it’s also a burden emotionally. Pierce’s daughter lives nearby in Lombard, Illinois, but her son, Jeff, killed himself in 2017. Since then she’s made a point of taking care of her mental health by avoiding heavy films or news.

“I cry a lot more,” she said, “because I read a lot more, especially about the Venezuelan refugees that are still at the station.”

Pierce welcomed the first six people into her modest two-story, three-bedroom home in early August: One couple and their child took a basement room, another took the upstairs bedroom. A seventh migrant — a childhood friend of one of the families already there — moved in at the start of October.

She said she would host even more “new family members,” but she doesn’t have enough space.

“I could have five more people on mattresses, easily,” she said. “But then they wouldn’t have more private space, and it would just be the same as at the police station.”

An overcrowded police station or shelter is exactly the kind of situation Pierce is trying to spare them.

As almost 20,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since August 2022, the number of migrants staying in police stations swelled over the summer to the point that many began sleeping outside of them, even as the cold has approached.

On Wednesday, there were nearly 2,500 migrants sleeping at police stations, according to the city’s Office of Emergency and Communications. More than 500 were at O’Hare.

The city has opened a number of shelters in recent months, but the rate of arrivals has far outpaced the city’s ability to settle migrants into housing through the state’s Asylum Seekers Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which provides migrants with up to six months of rental assistance through the Illinois Housing Development Authority.

Catholic Charities is the leading provider of the program in city shelters. In July — when 1,000 people arrived — they signed leases for 125 households; 311 in August, when 1,500 arrived; and 491 in September, when 3,500 arrived.

Their goal is to get 500 households to sign leases in October but already 2,000 migrants have arrived between Oct. 3 and 23.

Sally Blount, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, attributed gains to them looking beyond Chicago for housing and the help of partners, such as New Life Centers, for help with move-in.

As is, the slow process leaves some migrants sleeping in or around police stations for months.

Pierce, an active member of First United Church of Oak Park, heard about the situation and connected with a church member who was a volunteer at the nearby Austin District police station on Madison Avenue.

Within days, the families had moved in — with Pierce absorbing nearly all of the costs.

“This is very needed because the current process is very slow, said Annie Gomberg, the volunteer that connected Pierce with the families.

Gomberg also views it as a more positive welcome than the station to shelter to rental assistance process that is highly bureaucratic.

“This is a way to welcome people, with a bit more of a human hand than a city can ever do,” said the fellow suburbanite.

Sitting at Pierce’s dining table, Jose Hernandez reflected on how much better life is in the bungalow compared to the police station.

“It’s so different,” said Hernandez, 27, who spent more than a month living at the station, “to have a roof and to have what feels like a family.”

The native of Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, stays on the upper floor with his partner, whom he met at the station, and her 2-year-old son.

They tend to leave Pierce the ground floor, where her bedroom is, although they come to sit with her on the couch and speak haltingly to each other using Google Translate.

Frayeli Montoya and Jose Castro spent two months at the station with their 2-year-old, Melanny.

They tried to save for rent and a security deposit, although, realistically, an apartment was likely out of reach. They have none of the usual credentials, such as a credit score, Social Security number or pay stubs.

Luckily, they became close with a volunteer who ultimately connected them with Pierce.

Montoya was overwhelmed when she heard about the space in Pierce’s basement.

“We couldn’t stay there any longer, the girl was getting sick,” she said. “I was crying I was so happy. I didn’t think it would happen like that.”

Montoya, 21, Castro, 26, and Esteban Alexander, also 21, — and the newest member of the household — all come from Capacho, a quaint mountainous area near the Colombian border.

Payments they began having to make to local officials and gangs, however, left them with so little “it was becoming difficult to feed her,” said Montoya, looking at their daughter.

Initially, they considered moving elsewhere in South America — Castro and Montoya to Peru, Alexander in Colombia — but decided to head north after realizing the quality of life they enjoyed in Venezuela before the country spiraled into economic and political chaos was out of reach in those countries.

Looking at pictures of home, Castro becomes somber.

“We would love to return to Venezuela,” said the 26-year-old. “But to do that and have a house where we could really live, that doesn’t seem possible.”

Montoya, Castro and Alexander began their trek in fall 2022, but Alexander’s own border crossing was delayed by months due to problems with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s infamous border crossing app, CBP One.

Alexander described those months as hellish. “In Mexico, it’s not very easy,” said the 21-year-old. “It’s a country where migrants suffer at the hands of immigration authorities, cartels and the bus drivers who are working with both.”

It’s a stark contrast from the home he arrived at in late September.

Montoya and Hernandez’s partner have found steady jobs, but all are hoping to find steady work.

The fear is that Pierce suffers from a terminal breast cancer, which she says “runs from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.”

“We know she’s in delicate health,” Castro said. “It’s been a little hard for us, because we’re not sure what would happen to us…”

Pierce was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, and it became terminal in 2019. Terminal cancer patients can live with their disease for years.

Castro, however, becomes emotional as he considers the future. “Elaine’s like a mother for us the way she opened up her house. We love her.”

Hernandez nods in agreement. “She’s a gift from God.”

The move hasn’t been without some challenges for Pierce, a self-avowed “neatnik.” If she could do it again, she would take a day to lay out rules of the house and look further into resources for help getting necessities, from car seats to bicycles.

But she has no regrets about the love they’ve brought into the house.

“I get kissed and hugged six times a day now,” Pierce said, recalling how they visit briefly on their way in and out of the house. “One of them swoops over and gives me a kiss on the cheek and then back out.”

Michael Loria is a staff reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.