Matt DeMateo | Chicagoans of the Year 2024

First there were 10. Venezuelan migrants sent from Texas, they appeared one day in front of the nonprofit New Life Centers in Little Village. It was the winter of 2022, and the men, in flip-flops and T-shirts, were in search of help. “We believe in responding to crisis with love and healing,” Matt DeMateo, the CEO of New Life, says. So the faith-based community organization bought air mattresses and housed the men in the basement of its church. When several dozen more showed up, New Life found places for them to stay as well. But then there were thousands more; they were sleeping at Chicago police stations. Which, for DeMateo, meant it was time to respond by building the infrastructure to scale up.

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Video by Ross Feighery