The Chicago suburb of Oak Park has agreed to continue spending monies to help migrants new to Chicago and the United States:

The village board in Oak Park voted Monday night to allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars to help migrants through the winter.

It was a divisive vote that sparked controversy among Oak Park trustees, with the debate going late into the night.

In the end, Oak Park trustees decided to extend its emergency declaration and spend an additional $500,000 to support migrants through the winter. That’s a compromise from the original proposal to spend $1 million through March.

The additional money is coming from unspent federal funds, not from local taxes. The vote was four to three to approve the measure…

There are hundreds of migrants in Oak Park that are being helped by the village or by churches.

In an earlier discussion, one trustee suggested more suburban communities could be involved:

Straw said “it’s time” for Oak Park to be a leader, and “work on stepping out in front so we can bring along our neighboring communities.

“The goal should be for this to be a coordinated western suburban response, where we are not alone at the front, but linking arms with our neighbors,” Straw said. “But the only way to get there, when no else is willing to step out first, is to step out. And it’s time.”

In the recent public and political discourse about migrants, cities have provided the primary setting. But, suburbs are now often the communities newcomers to the United States go to. This may not have been common in earlier periods but it is more common today. In a country where a majority of residents live in suburbs and there are a variety of suburban communities, many immigrants start in the suburbs.

How many suburbs might join Oak Park in welcoming migrants? Will there be “a coordinated western suburban response”? Given that there are hundreds of suburbs in the Chicago region, there is a lot of potential for suburbs, religious congregations, other organizations, and residents to respond.