Judge keeps move-out date for South Shore building raided by feds, sending residents scrambling

Residents of a Chicago apartment building raided by federal immigration agents are scrambling to find places to live after a Cook County judge on Monday denied their request for more time and resources.

In an emergency hearing held via Zoom, Cook County Circuit Judge Debra Ann Seaton stood firm on the Dec. 12 move-out deadline and stood by the court-appointed property receiver, Friedman Communities.

“It seems like this is being made into a political issue; it should be a safety issue for the tenants,” Seaton said, adding that the building was uninhabitable due to a lack of heat, fire hazards, and security issues.

She said the move-out order did not come “out of a vacuum” and that the court had held several hearings on this case.

“This court is not making anybody homeless,” she said. “The court is working with a receiver who is actively engaged in finding relocation strategies for tenants.”

But residents say those “relocation strategies” amount to not much more than a check and a list of places to call. The 7500 South Shore Tenant Union held a news conference shortly after the hearing.

“Friedman is offering $2,500 up front and $2,500 after you give the keys, but that is all they’re doing,” said Raymond Corona, who has lived at the building for two years. “[They’re] handing us a paper to find other apartment buildings in the area, but when you call those numbers, no one answers, or the numbers are disconnected.”

Another resident, Larry Ashley, said Friedman only offered him $1,500.

“They said I had to be out of here by Friday; it was up to me to find somewhere to go with $1,500 in my pocket,” said Ashley, who has lived in the building for five years. “You could give $10,000 [but] if I ain’t got nowhere to go, what good is it going to do? What am I going to do, eat the money?”

Tenant organizers also disputed Seaton’s suggestion that residents have had enough time to find new apartments.

“People found out about this vacate date on November 26th,” said Infiniti Gant, an organizer with Southside Together. “No matter how long the court proceedings have been going on, the tenants didn’t know about it.”

Gant also said the judge’s claim that the tenant union has been keeping residents from talking to Friedman is false.

“In actuality, what has been happening is people have been hearing different things from Friedman,” she said.

Jared Friedman, co-CEO of Friedman Real Estate, said in court Monday that 12 residents have accepted the move-out offer. He said the building would be secured on Friday but would work with residents if they need to return to collect their belongings.

Seaton commended Friedman for doing “an excellent job.”

She did not allow residents to speak on Monday, taking comments only from their attorney and organizer. She said tenants were already given the opportunity to speak in previous hearings. But organizers said those were earlier on, when there was no discussion of deadlines or details.

Seaton also took issue with Mayor Brandon Johnson for trying to intervene on behalf of the tenants. Mayor Johnson wrote a letter on Nov. 4 to Friedman Real Estate, the parent company of the court-appointed property manager, Friedman Communities, requesting the move-out date be postponed and that each household get $7,500 for relocation costs. Seaton called this effort “undue influence” and said she was not swayed by it.

“The City of Chicago is presenting two different viewpoints here,” Seaton said. “We have … all of their inspectors who have deemed this property to be dangerous and hazardous and needs to be vacated immediately, and then we have the Office of the Mayor asking that this court delay.”

In a statement, a spokesperson from the Mayor’s Press Office said, “The Mayor’s request for an extension and additional financial resources for the tenants was made in an effort to prevent the tenants from becoming homeless in the middle of December. The Mayor did not dispute any of the City’s findings about the deplorable conditions of the building. The Mayor has not been presented with a comprehensive plan to re-house the tenants by the deadline provided by the Court.”

A group of residents was scheduled to meet with Friedman representatives last Friday, but the company canceled upon hearing of today’s emergency hearing, according to tenant Darren Hightower.

He said he took a day off from work at his warehouse job for Friday’s meeting and will now have to take more days off to find a place to live in the next four days. He worries that will hurt his rental application with any new landlord.

“I’m killing my hours now, so when I do find a place and I’m showing them my pay stubs, what is it looking like now?” he said.

For Raymond Corona, the entire saga over the past few months has felt unjust and unnecessary.

“I am being forced out of my home because of a series of choices that I did not make,” he said, adding that he had made numerous distress calls about the building before federal agents raided the complex on Sept. 30.

“We did not cause this building to deteriorate…. We did not call [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to raid this building, and yet me and my neighbors had to deal with those consequences,” Corona said. “Everything is being done to us.”