South Shore residents blast plan to turn former school into shelter for migrants: ‘We don’t want them in this building’

Angry residents shout at city officials at a community meeting Thursday. The officials had come to discuss plans to house asylum-seekers at shuttered South Shore High School. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times)

In a chaotic meeting Thursday, South Shore residents demanded city officials house immigrants arriving in Chicago on the North Side rather than at a shuttered local school, saying the resources being spent to help them should instead be invested on the South Side. 

Officials were prepared to deliver a presentation on the shelter plan at the meeting, which was held at South Shore International College Prep, but as it was set to begin, they were drowned out by audience members yelling, “We don’t care” and “We don’t want them here.”