No, I’ve not forgotten about the displaced Garfield Apartments residents, nor have you, judging by the number of readers who continue to ask about the well-being of more than two dozen tenants, including disabled seniors and small children, who were forced in August from their building in Aurora after it was ruled uninhabitable by the city.
Kerri Smith wants you to know she is grateful for this support. But she’d be even more grateful for another apartment.
And at the very least, she’d like to be able get back into the building at 480 Garfield Ave. to retrieve her belongings, which Smith says has been impossible so far.
That doesn’t seem to be asking for a whole lot, right?
Some 30 individuals and families were forced out of the building Aug. 22 with just a few hours notice because of numerous code violations at the building, yet not all have been reunited with their possessions, and for some who did finally manage to retrieve their personal items, it was not without a hassle.
Speaking on behalf of his disabled brother Barry, Bruce Worthel said he finally went to the shuttered building last Thursday, after the most recent city hearing on the fate of the property, in order to remove his sibling’s possessions with the help of a couple of church volunteers.
Worthel told me that after management let the small moving crew into his apartment, building security tried to stop them from removing his brother’s belongings, and that he had to call police when things got heated.
According to Aurora Police Department spokesman Paris Lewbel, two officers responded to the call, and the Worthels were eventually allowed to remove the items. But police had to be called a second time that same day as tempers flared again, with accusations flying some items had been taken from one of the apartments.
While no police reports were taken, according to Lewbel, officers contacted the tenants concerned about theft and provided them with the management attorney’s information who, he said, will resolve the issue in the next couple of days.
To say this saga that began unfolding in the summer has been challenging for all sides would be an understatement.
“It’s a tough situation,” admitted Aurora Chief Development Officer John Curley, when I asked about the city’s attempts to assist these tenants by setting up a resource page on its website that, with the help of Hesed House, would try to match them with available apartments, as well as rental and utility assistance.
“It’s been a struggle,” agreed Hesed House Executive Director Ryan Dowd, when I checked in with the nonprofit homeless shelter earlier this week.
That’s because few private donations came in, Dowd noted, so the organization is “mostly working with government-funded assistance,” which has “very specific, strict – and often arbitrary – qualification requirements … that take time to verify eligibility.”
In other words a lot of red tape, much of which doesn’t make much sense.
Another hurdle: Aurora simply does not have enough landlords who can take them in.
Unfortunately, many of these displaced residents are individuals and families with “very low income,” Dowd said, “and we are struggling to find apartments that cost anywhere near” the $550-$650 a month rent they were paying at Garfield.
According to Curley, the city sent out email blasts to hundreds of licensed landlords and ended up getting 28 units, most of which were in the $500-$900 price range, with a few outside the Aurora area.
According to Worthel, his brother is now living in an older but “nicely fixed-up” apartment on Aurora’s far West Side, thanks in large part to the city.
“It is a good deal,” he said, adding that he’s convinced his sibling is now in a better and safer environment.
Curley says that so far, Barry Worthel is the only tenant the city has been able to resettle, but officials are working with four other families, including Ashley Cluchey and her husband Clint, who are hoping to get a downtown Oswego apartment soon.
As of Tuesday, she said, the couple is still living in a motel and waiting to hear about approval for the deposit and first month’s rent needed to secure this new lease.
These happy – or sort of happy – endings seem to be the exception, however.
Smith says her 18-year-old son is living with his grandparents, while she and her husband are bunking with family and waiting for positive news from Hesed House.
She said she’s still got some of the $1,000 check each family received from the owners of the property after the media shined a spotlight on the situation more than a month ago. But some of that money, she added, had to go to another week living in a motel.
Right now, she said, she’d just be happy to get her clothes out of the Garfield Apartments building.
Speaking of which, according to Curley, Garfield Apartments owner Freedom Development Group has until Oct. 10, the date of the next hearing, to inform the city of whether the five-story building will be restored or razed.
“It could go either way,” said Curley, who described the property as “challenging.”
“We’re just hopeful that everyone will land in a spot that is sustainable,” he added, “and we can all move on and get a project that could work.”
In the meantime, tenants are hopeful their lives will get back to some kind of normalcy. Catuta Lathon, a mom of two toddlers, said she and her husband are still at her mother’s house, “trying to save and find affordable housing.”
As far as resources go, however, there’s not been much help.
“But I guess,” she added, “that’s life.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
