On an average day in Chicago last year, seven reported crimes took place in vacant properties. This constitutes a 48% increase in the number of crimes reported in Chicago’s vacant buildings between 2005-2012. After foreclosure banks and lenders often empty rental buildings of law-abiding, rent-paying families, resulting in scores of new vacant buildings. As a result, there has been an astronomical increase in the number of vacant properties in Chicago at the same time that crime in vacant buildings has been on the rise. Now the city is set to …

The Tenants in Foreclosure Intervention Project releases 2011 Report

LCBH Legal Director Mark Swartz teams up with Rebecca McDannald from Metropolitan Tenants Organization to take calls and answer: What are your legal rights as a renter in the Chicago area, and how can renters exercise those rights?