Good morning, Chicago.
The news last fall couldn’t have come at a better time for Karina Fuentes.
The 42-year-old Venezuelan migrant and her family could say goodbye to the Inn of Chicago shelter. They had been approved for a relatively new state program that promised to help migrants find apartments. The state would cover up to six months of rent — a key move to help the city empty its shelters, which had been swelling with migrants.
The family would soon learn, however, of the program’s sluggish bureaucracy and harsh on-the-ground realities. Fuentes, who has both a daughter and husband with serious medical needs, would be offered a series of apartments they considered unlivable.
The state would end up paying rent for months for places where people weren’t living. And, even for places migrants did live, it would often be charged $140 or more above market rate for apartments migrants often found uninhabitable.
Over an 18-month span through June, the state would pay more than $50 million to cover the rent of more than 6,000 families and, in the end, ask dozens of landlords to pay back more than $620,000 amid complaints about the properties.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Nell Salzman and Joe Mahr.
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NASCAR Chicago street race: For second year in a row, rain interrupts Grant Park 165
Fans — and once again, rain — flooded downtown Chicago Sunday for the NASCAR Chicago Street Race weekend’s main event, the Grant Park 165.
Thousands watched as race cars roared by on the city streets between lengthy delays sparked by intermittent downpours for a second year.
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Bulls lose DeMar DeRozan to the Sacramento Kings in free agency
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While texture might not be something you think about when it comes to cocktails, mixologists certainly do
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