Chicago’s migrant shelters will be shut down at the end of the year and absorbed into an existing system for homeless residents, Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a Monday announcement praising his administration for getting past an earlier humanitarian crisis while brushing off concerns of shrinking bed capacity that could lead to more people on the street.

Speaking at a news conference in City Hall, Johnson cast the shift to a unified shelter system covering both asylum-seekers and homeless Chicagoans as a victory for fiscal prudence, coordination of resources and Chicago’s values as a pro-immigrant city.

“We fought back and showed the world just how welcoming we can be,” the mayor said. He told reporters later: “There’s nowhere else on the planet that has been able to stand the test of time in this crisis. You all know what the coverage was a year ago because you all covered it, and to see what we are today tells you everything you need to know about this administration. We don’t cower under pressure.”

Johnson was referring to the grim situation last fall as the newly sworn-in mayor and his team were tasked with responding to an extraordinary surge of migrant buses from Texas, one that overwhelmed the city’s existing safety net and resulted in hundreds of families camped outside police stations until the start of winter. Those asylum-seekers, mostly from Venezuela, were bused north to Chicago starting in August 2022 with the support of GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who said liberal cities that claim the mantle of being friendly to immigrants should prove it.