South Shore Tenants Press Landlord After Weeks Of No Heat

A group of 15 South Side residents are calling on their landlord to return heat to their apartments or help them find a place to live.

Residents of the Catalyst Realty buildings at 6725 and 6733 South Paxton Avenue said they lost heat and hot water in their units on New Year’s Eve last year, leading to many of them having to stay in hotels or with friends, Block Club Chicago reported. Now, still without a full repair completed or access to some units, they are demanding the landlord find a permanent solution.

Catalyst Realty turned the hot water back on shortly after it shut off and has been paying for the tenants’ hotel rooms, but at a news conference this weekend, the group demanded the heat be returned or Catalyst help them find new long-term residences.

“This whole experience has been very traumatic, in the sense that it’s brought my wife and I both to tears,” one resident, Minister Sivi Miles, said at the press conference. “My children have been sick. I have a newborn, who they seem to care nothing about, who recently got diagnosed with RSV.”

The group of tenants said they want Catalyst to find them affordable and well-maintained new placements that don’t require new leases and won’t raise the rent for at least a year. In addition, if residents choose to stay in their current apartments once the repairs are made, they want to have their January and February rents waived. All of the residents also want to be reimbursed for a month’s worth of rent to cover the expenses associated with their displacement, such as buying daily necessities.

In addition to failing multiple inspections in January and February and reportedly having some of the apartments heated with gas stoves, Catalyst Realty also reportedly recently changed the locks on the apartments, preventing tenants from returning to their units to retrieve their belongings. Replacement options the landlord has offered to the displaced tenants have also been called “unlivable” with mold, animal feces and other problems, residents told the outlet.

— Victoria Pruitt