As most Chicagoans hunkered down against what forecasters warned could be the coldest nights so far this season, Chicago Housing Authority holdout Verlee Gant cranked up the stove and dug in her heals.
For Gant, the conditions have been particularly difficult, because her 79-year-old mother shares an eighth-floor apartment with her in a dilapidated CHA building at 4331 S. Federal St. that officials have vowed to demolish as part of a plan to improve public housing.
“I wrap her up in covers, I put a lot of blankets on her, I put sweaters on her,” said Gant, 62.
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Despite the problems in the Robert Taylor Homes development where she lives, Gant is in no hurry to leave because she said the building where the CHA wants to relocate her is no better than where she lives now.
Welcome to the chilly front lines of the CHA’s latest battle with residents reluctant to leave their ailing buildings.
Gant and her mother are among only about 15 families still living in a building CHA officials hoped to have empty by Nov. 15. CHA officials said they have not tried to evict the remaining holdouts, but have urged them to leave a building that once accommodated 150 families, offering them apartments in other public housing facilities.
But several of the holdouts, including Gant, claim the apartments they have been offered are no better than the ones they are in now. In the meantime, several of them charged this weekend that the CHA has let the heating system in their current building deteriorate.
CHA officials, however, insist the heat is on.
Haunted by tales of last winter–when CHA residents charged that the agency allowed a winter freeze to wreak havoc on the buildings as a way to squeeze residents out–CHA Chief Executive Officer Phillip Jackson said that as long as residents remain in buildings, heat will flow at levels consistent with city building codes. Those standards require indoor temperatures to be above 63 degrees at any time, CHA officials said.
So if it’s chilly in the apartments, Jackson added, it may be precisely because the buildings are no longer fit for habitation.
“When there are broken windows, and you have a boiler system that we know is not worth investing in, yes, it’s hard to heat up the adjacent apartments. Yes, it very well might be cold in some apartments,” Jackson said. “But it’s not like they didn’t know about this problem. . .these are the reasons why these buildings were supposed to be empty by the time cold weather hit.”
Despite CHA officials’ assurance that the heat is working properly, residents and housing advocates charge the agency has been lax in responding to complaints by those who have chosen not to leave.
“There have been calls made to CHA and the Department of Human Services, and according to the residents, no one has come out to check it out,” said Sarah Klepner, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Public Housing. In addition to the 4331 S. Federal St. building, Klepner said, residents at 4352 S. State St. have also complained about a lack of heat.
As for the holdouts’ ultimate fate, Jackson said his office had decided to wait until Thanksgiving to begin pressuring the remaining residents to take their new apartments. Now, with winter bearing down and buildings getting cold, the agency may become more forceful in its tactics.