Some turned in their keys and walked off feeling relieved. Others were forced out by armed security personnel telling them they had 30 minutes to leave the building.
The remaining residents of the South Shore apartment complex raided by federal immigration agents earlier this fall left the building Friday, scattering to different parts of the city.
Raymond Corona came bright and early to return his keys and collect the second $2,500 check from Friedman Communities, the court-appointed property manager. He is headed to an apartment in West Lawn after a short stay at a hotel these coming weeks.
“Even though I’ve only lived here a little over two years, I made this neighborhood my home,” Corona said. “I made friends [here] and I used to walk my dogs on the beach every single day.”
Corona criticized Judge Debra Ann Seaton, for not listening to residents’ feedback about the timeline. Seaton on Monday denied the tenants’ request to extend the move-out deadline calling the building unsafe.
“She silenced us,” he said.
Like Corona, Darren Hightower turned in his keys on Friday morning after spending one final cold night in the building. He said he saw security personnel use battering rams to open doors of locked units on Friday morning.
“I guess if you don’t have a key to hand in or if you don’t come signing off in time, they’re just going to knock down the remaining doors to board them up,” he said.
Hightower said his car broke down Thursday night, making the final move-out difficult. He doesn’t have a place to live yet, but is glad to be done with this chapter of his life.
“I made a lot of friends in the last few months here, I feel deeply about a lot of people,” he said. “I hope their stories turn around also.”
According to an image of the lease termination agreement obtained by WBEZ, tenants who signed the document and received compensation have released Friedman Communities, the bank that owns the foreclosed property, and the previous owners of any liability.
Residents without leases, like Candis Stewart, were not offered the $5,000 move-out funds.
In tears as she carried a suitcase out, Stewart said she was given 30 minutes to leave the building by two armed security personnel hired by Friedman Communities.
“I woke up to a guard with a gun at the door — a big man and a lady, they had guns at their sides — and they told us that we had to get out,” Stewart said. On her last night in the building, she stayed in a vacant unit after Friedman Communities locked her out of her old apartment.
Stewart had been living with her fiance, who was the lease holder.
“He moved out when I was at the hospital after he beat me,” she said, adding that her phone was one of the items left in the now-boarded-up apartment.
Stewart said she did not know where she would stay Friday night, and said she had lost most of her possessions when property management boarded up her apartment.
Members of the media were not allowed inside the building on Friday.
Representatives from the Chicago Mayor’s Office and the city’s Department of Family & Support Services were on hand to connect people like Stewart to resources.
The judge’s order said tenants who have belongings still in the building “shall coordinate with [Friedman Communities] to have access to the building to retrieve and claim any personal property left after the move-out date.” But on Wednesday, a WBEZ reporter and a resident asked Friedman representatives to confirm the provision and were told that Friday was the final day to take any belongings.
On Friday, Rochelle Conner, who lived at 7500 South Shore Dr. for seven years, came back to check on her neighbors.
Conner said Friedman Communities did not have a check for her even though she was a rent-paying lease-holder for years. She moved out the day after the immigration raid on Sept. 30. She added that Strength In Management, the property manager at the time of the raid, may not have given Friedman Communities her name “because I was one of the people that was calling on them.”
Friedman Communities did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Strength In Management previously declined to respond to criticism from residents.
Organizer Jonah Karsh, with the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, said most of the tenants moved out on Thursday with the help of movers hired by his group and volunteers from Southside Together.
Karsh said the efforts of the two groups, plus the Mayor’s Office, provided residents some relief in a difficult situation. Groups like Metropolitan Family Services and Catholic Charities got involved as well, helping check people into hotels for the short term and providing additional funds.
“None of that was being offered to them by the receiver,” Karsh said.
He added that many claims made by Friedman Communities that led to the court order vacating the building Friday were inaccurate.
“We’re not aware of a single tenant that was offered actual re-location,” he said.
Friday’s move-out at 7500 South Shore, Karsh said, is “a really unjust and tragic outcome.” Referring to the Wisconsin-based owner Trinity Flood, Karsh continued, “This story starts out with an out-of-state investor with no experience in multifamily real estate, getting in over her skis and letting a building deteriorate.”
Karsh also had harsh words for the property manager, 7th Ward alderperson Greg Mitchell, and “the systems in the city [that are] not set up in such a way that could prevent the building from deteriorating.”