Remember when militarized federal agents rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters and raided a South Shore building in Chicago this past September?
On Monday, some of the Black residents who still live in the raided building spoke out about the unlivable conditions in the building before and after the raid.
“No one paid attention to the fact that people were living here without heat before ICE came,” said Infiniti Gant, a housing organizer with Southside Together. “People were living here with mice and roaches and flea infestation before ICE.”
Dozens of remaining residents stood together to announce the formation of the 7500 South Shore Tenants Union. Through the union, residents are demanding the full restoration of heat, electricity, and elevators, along with the removal of standing water, sewage, and mold from the building.
The majority of their demands are toward Friedman Communities, the court-appointed receiver who currently manages the building. They’re also demanding that Friedman Communities relocate residents to buildings in South Shore and provide $7,500 in relocation assistance ahead of their move-out date.
“We have people in this building who are disabled, don’t have family to locate to, that are out of power, that are out of heat,” building resident Darren Hightower said.
At the press conference outside the building, tenants said they’re also looking for accountability from Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson. They want the building to have 24-hour security. In addition, they’re also requesting that the Chicago Housing Authority expedite inspections and the moving process for Section 8 voucher holders in the building.
They expressed feeling abandoned by city and state leaders. During a Q&A with reporters, Gant said tenants still haven’t heard from Ald Gregory Mitchell (7th Ward). The South Shore building is in his ward.
“We get life happens to everybody, but before this ICE [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] raid, it’s been plenty of issues happening with this building that’s been unfair,” Mashawnda Price, a building resident, said. “They’ve been trying to silence us and it’s just like, if y’all would have handled this, y’all wouldn’t be having to run from not holding yourself accountable for not taking care of this building.”
Hightower and Price were among the two residents who spoke about their experiences living in the building. Hightower has lived in the building for two years.
“Heat is a major problem that we have in here, because some of our people are living unsafely with the electrical heat that we have to use to live in here, unsafe with the carbon monoxide that might be released from using your gas stove,” he said, referring to people using their gas stoves to heat their apartments.
Both Hightower and Price reiterated that the conditions in the building were already unlivable before the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid.
In the wee hours of the morning on Sept. 30, hundreds of masked federal agents in military fatigues rappelled from Black Hawk military helicopters onto the South Shore building. They jumped out of cargo vans, too.
“They were kicking in doors, flash bombing people, telling everybody to get on the ground, even the Black people,” Dewayne Jackson, a South Shore resident, said in a previous TRiiBE article. “A lot of people got locked up who had warrants… They had nothing to do with no Venezuelans.”
About 37 people were reportedly arrested during the raid. Black U.S. citizens were also detained. The Department of Homeland Security claimed that some of the targeted people were Latin gang members; they also said accused those targeted of drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violations.
A recent ProPublica investigation found no evidence to support the federal government’s claims that the Tren de Aragua gang took over the building.
The property at 7500 S. South Shore Dr. has had multiple building code violations, according to previous reporting by The TRiiBE.
“We’ve heard about ICE raiding this building, but that’s all we’ve heard. No one has paid attention to the fact that there have been problems in this building way before ICE came,” Gant said.
Southside Together and the Metropolitan Tenants Organization are supporting the 7500 South Shore Tenants Union. Hightower and Price said that conditions at the building have worsened in the weeks following the immigration raid.
“Friedman has not turned on the heat, even though it’s been in the low 30s some of these days. They have not fixed the lights in the hallway. It is very dark,” Price said. “They have not fixed the water and the sewage. There’s sewage water and the mold on the first and second floor, so there are flies everywhere, like, my ceiling is damn near caving in, like, it’s so much going on. The building is falling apart from the inside out, and yes, it has a bad smell on each floor.”
At a Nov. 7 court hearing, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Debra Seaton appointed a receiver, Friedman Communities, to manage the building and ordered them to clean it, move out the remaining tenants and evict squatters.
Today, there are 36 tenants in the building. In total, the building has 130 units.
The elevators in the building are frequently out of service. Price said she’s had to physically assist her disabled and senior neighbors who use wheelchairs because they are unable to use the elevator.
“The stairwells are dirty and not clean, so it’s hard to maneuver in the building and help them get to their units when the building is trash,” Price said.
Though the remaining tenants have to relocate, they are demanding that Friedman Communities fix the longstanding issues in the building.
The 7500 South Shore Tenants Union sent their demands to Friedman Communities, Pritzker and Johnson.
The Chicago City Council passed the Jackson Park Housing Pilot Ordinance in September and it went into effect today, Gant said. With the ordinance now in effect, it will offer protections to tenants in the building, preventing them from being displaced.
“We have a majority tenant union, so we have been having meetings together. We’ve been coming together, talking together about what has been going on in the building, and through that, people are building relationships,” Gant said. “Because through relationships, we build power.”
