Many upper-middle-aged West Siders are still suffering from the aftermath of a July 2023 storm that brought historic levels of rain and flash floods to Chicago, leading to damaged homes and basements full of mold.
Shirley Anderson, 64, is one of them. Anderson has lived in her North Lawndale home for 22 years and had never seen anything like the flooding of summer 2023. The storm runoff flooded corners and streets, and overloaded the sewer system, ultimately sending rushing waters into her home. A lot of her personal belongings were destroyed.
“[My son had] just bought me a TV and put it downstairs in the basement,” Anderson said. “The flood messed that up. FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] came in, they gave me a few coins, that wasn’t even enough, really, to buy [a new] washing machine.” Anderson said she received about $2,000 from FEMA. Yet she still smells mold when she turns her heat on and has since dealt with more flooding in her home in the last year. Putting on a mask to enter her basement is a normal routine for Anderson, who said she cannot stay down there too long because of the presence of spores.
“I don’t need to be inhaling that for my health,” said Anderson, who has battled with cancer, COVID and pneumonia in recent years. “I’ve been through enough already. I’ve been through the valley of the shadow of death.”
Anderson said she lives on a fixed income of roughly $950 a month, not nearly enough to fix the damage that’s been done to her home, adding that the flooding in the area happens often.
“It comes periodically, but it’s never [acknowledged by the city],” Anderson said. “Nobody never really says, you know what’s going on over here in this neighborhood.”
Anderson isn’t alone in these complaints. A group of senior citizens recently aired their grievances at the Columbus Park Refectory in October to detail how the 2023 storm, which was said to have impacted 12,000 homes, is still affecting them.
Meanwhile, the West Side Long-Term Recovery Group has helped with removing mold and debris from the basements of homes after the storms. Last week, the group along with its partner Westside Health Authority, secured a contract with the city’s Department of Housing (DOH) that will enable them to receive funds to help with mold remediation and fill financial gaps left behind by FEMA.
The group has worked with contractors in the community who are certified in lead removal and mold mediation, according to Jacqueline Reed, chair of the West Side Long-Term Recovery Group.
“We have been able to clean out over 215 homes, removing mold and other debris,” says Reed. “We still have families who have mold in their homes. So it is a real tragedy that we still are suffering from the 2023 flood, given the fact that we have had FEMA come in.”
Reed hopes that the funds will help them remediate at least 40 homes by New Year’s Day.
Reed’s group received $3 million from the city’s Flood Assistance Repair Program, or FARP. The contract was a result of organizers pushing the city to work with companies that were already doing the work in the neighborhood. Prior to Reed’s intervention, the city’s program reportedly offered up to $25,000 to households with total income at or below the Area Median Income of 100% “for the remediation and restoration of health and safety issues confined to their basements.”
“Part of what we realized is that it is going to be better in the long run, that it be run by folks who’ve been on the ground, doing some of the work themselves,” DOH Commissioner Lissette Castañeda told The TRiiBE.
Reed said that the group worked with the DOH since they began the work but no talks of funds was ever brought up until Ald. Emma Mitts (37th Ward) “advocated for special consideration in late 2024.” Reed said they submitted the application in March of this year and had expected funds by June.
While the relief is welcome, the contract between the group and the city comes as many residents and organizers are looking for answers on how the city had already spent flood assistance funds, as many say they’ve been denied or have not yet heard back after a 2024 announcement of the $5 million in flood assistance. That new influx of funds was earmarked to help 200 homeowners.
Princess Shaw, president and founder of the Lawndale-based nonprofit Light Up Lawndale, has been working with the senior population on the West Side to remove mold from their homes and help them as they demand financial assistance. Shaw has been very vocal and critical of what she describes as a lack of communication from Mayor Brandon Johnson and the DOH and frustration over the West Side-based group not receiving the full $5 million.
“If there was any type of real inspection being done in these homes, a lot of these people would lose these homes today,” Shaw told The TRiiBE.
Castañeda explained that the transition process for the program included going through various departments such as the Office of Budget Management and the Department of Law.
“And one of the external stakeholders we have to work with is going through the process with the union, because, per their collective bargaining agreement, there are certain ways in which the city does contracting out,” Castañeda said. “So it’s not specific to them. It’s just like it’s one of the steps that we have to take as part of the process.”
Shaw added that the few residents who received city help were not happy with work performed by the city’s selected contractors, and that some of the homes experienced flooding again this year. Shaw added that if residents’ applications were approved, they were given a DOH number to call, but no one ever answered.
“They said it was very mediocre work that was done,” Shaw said. “Some people who have the backflow preventers or the check flow valves put into their basements have flooded again this year when it rained.”
Castañeda said she had not heard that any residents were unsatisfied with the work.
“It can be a frustrating process to work with the city, we understand that, and that’s again, why we moved to this idea of let’s have a community-based organization do it instead,” Castañeda said. “But we have not heard any complaints from the folks who got any work done.”
Files sent from the DOH in response to a Freedom of Information Act request show that 54 homes received funds for remediation and repair related to the 2023 floods as part of the FARP program. The lowest amount a home received was an estimated $13,000, with the highest receiving $53,000. All those payouts totaled $1.4 million. In an email, DOH explained that some flood projects come both below and slightly above the project cap.
According to more files obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests, DOH tapped five different contractors to work on the impacted homes, committing $1.45 million per company tasked with remediation work from funds from the Flood Assistance Program and the DOH’s Home Repair Program. Reed expects to get that pricing reduced by working with their own network of contractors.
“We basically were trying to advocate for the people,” Reed said. “The good part about it is that we are going in, and we’re gonna be doing the homes. So we got to get the best price to see who does the best work. And our commitment is to these homeowners.”
Garfield Park resident Calcie Madison says her mother’s home flooded in 2023. The West Side two-flat has been in her family for 50 years. Madison said her mom’s home had high levels of water that reached the basement’s fifth step in 2023. The below-ground space was completely soaked and the family is still battling mildew and mold.
Madison’s 77-year-old mother received about $4,500 from FEMA and has been denied assistance by the city, Madison said. Some seniors have reported receiving even less in government assistance. In the Facebook group West Side Seniorss, one post shared that one senior received just $300 from FEMA and demanded answers from the government as well as the City of Chicago. Some basement remediations can cost upwards of $20,000 to clean, clear and restore a finished basement to livable status.
“I just want people to understand that they’re giving the people the run around, and these are older people, and they should have gotten the help already that they needed,” Madison said. “I feel like they’re not doing enough to release those funds that they are already entitled to.”
Impacted Chicagoans from the 2023 floods received over $172 million from FEMA for an initiative called the Individual and Households Program. According to a Disaster Recovery Action Plan from the city, “The City did not receive a FEMA Public Assistance (PA). As a result, the City did not receive federal funding through FEMA PA to support municipal recovery efforts such as debris removal, infrastructure repair, or emergency protective measures. This absence of FEMA PA funding has placed an increased burden on local resources.”
Due to climate change, damages are expected to worsen as Chicago faces some of the largest number of properties at risk for flooding in the coming decades, according to reporting from the Illinois Answers Project. Flood warnings due to severe storms have hit the Chicago area since 2023’s floods. Research shows that poor communities and communities of color are most impacted.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provided $426 million in January through its Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery Program to assist with flood damages from 2023 and 2024.
During his budget address, Mayor Johnson said that he would provide more assistance for victims of the 2023 and 2024 floods “through investments in critical infrastructure improvements and direct cash assistance for affected families,” according to budget materials provided by the Mayor’s Office.
The city’s final action plan, which was approved over the summer, seeks to address “root causes” and prevent further storm damage. This time, a little over $500 million is earmarked for flood remediation. The breakdown equates to $442 million for infrastructure and mitigation, $40 million for housing relief, $5 million in business relief, and $15 million for reimbursements.
With the DOH contract, the West Side Long-Term Health Recovery Group seeks to help residents like Anderson and Madison’s mother. Though the $3 million is not enough to help all those impacted, Reed said it’s a start.
“We are very anxious about it because, you know, it’s getting cold,” Reed said. “And also Christmas and the holidays are coming, and their basements have been this way for two Christmases already.”
