CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Tenants of the Chicago Housing Authority-operated Washington Park Homes have demanded a sit-down with the CHA over what they've described as life-threatening living conditions for them and their children.
Anna Jones was among the Washington Park Homes residents who spoke out on Monday. She told WBBM that insufficient insulation and heating at the CHA property, located in the South Side’s Grand Boulevard neighborhood, has caused her and many others to use multiple space heaters and even their ovens to heat their homes.
“Energy-wise, it’s an issue, but inhaling the fumes and the gasses from an open oven is also an issue,” Jones said. “You have to make that determination: Do I need to be warm right now, or do I care to breathe these fumes in?”
Jones said her gas bill is currently $900. The same goes for her electric bill, she added.
“These bills are so high because you have to use heaters to plug into the wall; you have to use the oven; and you have to use the heat on a high level,” she said.
Theresa Stevenson, who’s lived at Washington Park Homes since 2009, said her unit has no insulation. The presence of mold inside of her home was obvious as she showed WBBM her daughter's bedroom, where a wall that was supposed to be white was almost entirely blacked out with mold.
Similar reports — of mold, a lack of heat, mysterious rashes and other serious health impacts — were common among the tenants gathered outside of their residence at 4535 S. Champlain Ave.
Longtime tenant Nicole Moore welcomed WBBM into her home, where large patches of water damage were visible on the ceiling, caused by a leak from her upstairs bathroom. Water was dripping into a bucket in the middle of the floor.
“We keep getting leaks,” she said. “When I turn on my tub water, it leaks down into this bucket, and there’s mold under here that they just keep cleaning out.”
Moore said complaints to either the CHA or property manager East Lake, which manages multiple CHA properties in addition to Washington Park Homes, were met with the threat of eviction or worse.
“They called DCFS on me for calling 311,” she said. “I was waiting for the plumbing inspector, and as I was waiting for the plumbing inspector, they called DCFS on me and said that I got my son in inadequate housing — and they caused this.”
East Lake Management and the CHA have not responded to WBBM’s request for comment.
Joining the residents was Tulsi McDaniels, an organizer with a coalition of tenants’ rights advocates who are backing the proposed Chicago Healthy Homes Ordinance. The proposal would create a landlord registry and subject all buildings in the city to a mandatory inspection every five years.
“Buildings that do not meet the mandatory inspections will be fined and unable to make evictions, ensuring that tenants are protected from opportunistic and oppressive landlords,” McDaniels said.
Those who spoke out on Monday were only the latest CHA residents to report unsanitary and dangerous living conditions.
Tenants of Uptown’s Ella Flagg Young Apartments, located on North Sheridan Road near West Leland Avenue, previously told WBBM about issues with cold apartments, vermin, and elevator problems. They added that the building had one washer and dryer to serve more than 200 residents.
The department has also come under fire from housing advocates over the use or sale of CHA land for non-housing developments, including a plan to build a $120 million high school on land that used to hold over 1,000 affordable housing units.
Some Washington Park Homes tenants told WBBM that they want to be relocated to a building that meets standard health conditions.
If they are relocated, though, the residents said they want to take steps to make sure their vacated unit remains vacant until full inspections and repairs are completed.
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