Blog: Building / Apartment Conditions

John is a young disabled man who has had asthma all of his life. John is unable to work and he lives on very limited resources and income from Social Security. John recently moved into a new apartment and every time there was a heavy rain, his apartment would flood. As a result, mold was visible on his living room walls and kitchen cabinets, which he would scrub with soap to remove the mold. John documented the damage and contacted his property manager every time it happened. The property manager tried to address the flooding issues with various repairs, but the mold continued to come back.

While seeing his doctor for something unrelated, John mentioned he had some difficulty breathing in his home sometimes. During his examination, the issue of the re-occurring mold came up. Because mold spores can trigger asthma symptoms in sensitive individuals, the doctor was concerned that John’s housing situation may be the cause.

Luckily for John, his doctor works for PCC Community Wellness Center – a medical partner of Healthy Housing Chicago – a medical-legal partnership between LCBH, Loretto Hospital and PCC. The program is a bridge for patients to connect them to legal services, because health issues can be caused or exacerbated by unsafe housing conditions.

During her annual checkup, Shannon’s doctor asked whether she was experiencing any stress. Shannon explained she was very stressed because the property manager at her building would not accept her rent, and she had received a five-day notice threatening to evict her from her apartment. Shannon’s doctor explained that they had a lawyer onsite and that maybe this lawyer could help her situation.

The lawyer that the doctor was referring to is from Healthy Housing Chicago. Last year, LCBH embarked on a new project with Loretto Hospital and PCC Community Wellness Center to develop a medical-legal partnership known as Healthy Housing Chicago. Located in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, the hospital and adjacent clinic strive to meet the healthcare needs of low-income families in the community. The primary goal of Healthy Housing Chicago is to integrate legal services into a patient’s treatment plan to both improve their overall health outcomes, as well as their housing.

After the doctor’s appointment, Shannon walked down the hall to meet with the lawyer. Upon speaking with the LCBH attorney, Shannon learned that the landlord was required to accept the rent within the five-day notice period, and that if paid, the landlord could not continue with the eviction. The LCBH attorney told Shannon to try to pay the rent again, but to properly document the refusal, to protect herself from an eviction.

Last winter, tenants living in an 18 unit apartment building in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood found out the building they called home had a new owner. Shortly after they were informed of the new ownership, tenants received a letter with two options: either leave their unit in 30 days or re-apply to remain in the building. Most of the tenants had limited resources and were unable to move within thirty days. Most of the tenants took the option to re-apply as a genuine invitation to remain in their homes with no interruption to their lives. However, the so-called re-application process was only a disguise of goodwill when, in fact, the new owner’s plan was to remove all the tenants. The terms of the new rental application and rental agreement were designed so that none of the current residents could qualify. Frustrated and upset, and now threatened with eviction, the tenants contacted Centro Autonomo, a community based organization located in Albany Park for help. Centro Autonomo helped organize the tenants and they contacted LCBH to help form a tenants association. After much negotiation, the new owner responded to the formation of the tenants association and the threat of fighting the evictions in court and decided to negotiate with the tenants.

This summer, Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing (LCBH) teamed up with the John Marshall Law School’s Pro Bono Program and Heartland Alliance to help a family in crisis get a fresh start. The Ali family had recently fled Syria during the civil war and escaped to the US where they hoped to establish a new life. They moved into an apartment building that had a bedbug infestation, and soon their small children suffered from bed bug bites that required ongoing medical attention. To make matters worse, the landlord refused to treat the infestation and had threatened the family suggesting he could interfere with their application for asylum.

The family did not speak much English and they were at a loss about how to best to protect themselves. Without steady income and paying for mounting extermination and medical cost, soon the Ali family found themselves in eviction court. For any family, facing a legal system can be very intimidating and foreign, even to those who have lived their entire lives here in America.