After 50 years of political promises and baby steps, the promise former Mayor Richard J. Daley made when he opened the 95th Street station in 1969 is finally nearing the finish line. The feds are making a $2 billion commitment to cover half the cost and authorizing CTA to advance to the engineering stage, which CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. called the “final step … in order to begin construction.”

“Chicago has been housing the illegal immigrants at O’Hare International Airport, in facilities totally unequipped to deal with the influx of people. New York has considered constructing tent cities in Central Park as expensive hotels fill to the brim, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars a month. Protests are now erupting over the chaos.”

“I’m not going to accept the notion that the city of Chicago is going to be destroyed … This is not a challenge that will overwhelm us,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “If we do not create an infrastructure where we’re able to support, and quite frankly, contain these individuals who have experienced a great deal of harm, individuals who are desperate – if we do not provide support for these individuals and these families, that type of desperation will lead to chaos.”

The project, estimated to cost at least $70 million, has divided neighbors. Some South Siders have raised concerns with the project’s environmental impacts and its potential to price out neighborhood golfers who have used the existing courses for decades. Fundraising challenges and a tepid response to the plans from local leaders, including former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, have been some of the holdups.

“The central business district has an opportunity to feed the desires that exist,” Johnson said. “It’s really going to require us to be thoughtful, to be innovative and, yes, to take some risks. But that’s who we are as a city.” Johnson said industries that are the focus for development include logistics, manufacturing, clean energy, biotech, quantum computing and life sciences, all of which he said have the ability to grow and create jobs.

The mayor has yet to reveal details about the cost, timeline or locations of the camps. “So the sacrifices that will be required in this moment will be necessary from all of us, every single level of government,” he said at an unrelated news conference when asked about whether additional revenue will be needed. “Look, I can tell you that the cost of inaction will be far more substantial.”

The city has already spent $116 million on the migrant matter, while the Chicago Public Schools have spent $1.4 million of their own dollars, and the Chicago Park District $250,000, a source said.

That funding boost is even with a nearly 7.5% decrease in enrollment statewide since the 2018-2019 school year, the first year in which the Invest in Kids program began awarding private school scholarships in Illinois.

“No matter where you stand on the contentious issue of school choice — shorthand for the debate over using state money to help families defray the cost of private schools — most fair-minded people can agree on this: Vociferous opponents of school choice should probably live by the rules they would enforce on others. And yet, it’s come to light that one of the harshest critics of school choice in Chicago [Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis-Gates] — who has gone so far as to characterize those on the opposite side of the debate as racists — is sending one

“One almost has to admire the nerve of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who seems to be dismissing his critics as racists even as his administration plans to erect a statue honoring one of the city’s best-known bigots.”

“They don’t like what they’re seeing in their neighborhoods as their substandard public government schools get worse, as city services decrease and as the middle class told countless times they don’t belong flee the cities and take with them the means to pay for those services. You can’t cover such resentment up with a carpet. You know the crack is there. And eventually in the cities at least, with the middle class leaving in droves, it will all come tumbling down.”

“When schools fail students, parents look elsewhere to give their children real opportunities for a brighter future,” state Rep. LaShawn Ford said. “A person’s income or zip code should not predict a child’s school success, which is why we need to responsibly invest in new, state-of-the-art learning environments that can spark opportunity and create better futures.”

The new website, WelcometoChicago.org, will provide weekly updates on the number of migrants in the city, new arrivals, shelter locations and other data, as well as efforts by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration and city departments to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis, Vasquez said.

“There are millions upon millions of dollars being spent on this migrant crisis. Nobody knows where the money is going, or what it’s being spent on,” William Kelly reported.

But after years of planning and raising well over $1 billion, the Obama Presidential Center finally has emerged from the ground as a physical presence in Jackson Park, just across the street from Hyde Park Academy High School and a quick walk from the University of Chicago campus.

Ald. Michael Rodriguez pegged this year’s cost of the contract at $30 million.

“Every time you give a young person an opportunity to see themselves and know their worth and value, that is the best public safety plan,” Johnson said.

The group of barbers, who cut hair in their home country, came up with the pop-up barber shop as a way to make extra cash to send back to their families, and buy food and other treats. Now they “don’t have money and we can’t cut hair,” one of those arrested said in Spanish. “Police told us we can’t do it so now we don’t know what to do …. we can’t work, we can’t do anything.”

“We do not have the resources to serve every single

The mayor offered no specifics on cost or funding. Instead, he described the broad outlines of a plan that includes “base camps” that would provide meals and recreational and educational programming supplied by Chicagoans as a way to reduce what he called the “exorbitant” costs now being paid to a private staffing agency. Pressed repeatedly, Johnson did not rule out budget cuts or tax increases — or

The median rent for a one bedroom apartment in Chicago is currently $1,385, up almost 24% compared to this time last year and 10% higher than the national median. The average cost of a two bedroom apartment is $1,745, up nearly 30% compared to the same time last year. That price is 13% above the national median.