CHICAGO— On a windy morning last week, Maria Cinfuentes warmed her frigid hands and fretted about her future outside Chicago’s largest migrant shelter.
Last week, she learned that the shelter, her first home since arriving in the US from Venezuela in December, will close next month. Unsure of her next action.
Am jobless. The 30-year-old mother of three told NBC News in Spanish that her husband is unemployed. Nobody here knows me. How will I pay rent?
Before being mass-evicted from local shelters to save money and make room for newcomers, over 13,000 refugees like Cinfuentes must find accommodation and jobs.
Because housing help and work permits are difficult for new immigrants to get, many of the more than a dozen migrants questioned by NBC News last week worried they wouldn’t make the deadline. Advocates expect most shelter residents to reapply. They fear homelessness.
“I can’t sleep. Cinfuentes said he wondered all night. Makes me sick.”
She claimed she carried a poster reading, “I am looking for work,” throughout the city to boost her chances. Please help me find work.”