Residents say their Illinois apartment building was boarded up with them still inside
Several tenants of two Illinois apartment buildings say their doors and windows were boarded up on Jan. 5, trapping them inside.
“I said, ‘Can y’all unboard this window, there’s a person inside,’” James Williams, whose uncle, Rudolph Williams, was one of the residents trapped, told CBS Chicago. “He just looked at me and kept on walking.”
Rudolph Williams told reporters his nephew alerted him to the situation in Harvey, a Chicago suburb. “He said, ‘You boarded up in here,’” Williams told NBC5 Chicago. “I opened the door and that’s when I saw there was a board right there.”
Williams told CBS Chicago he heard sounds outside his S. Halsted Street apartment, but mistook it for possible construction.
“I’m used to the noise when they started to do construction,” he told the station. “Didn’t pay really that much attention after a while, I sort of drowned it out.”
Another resident told CBS Chicago she was asleep when the boards were put up, and that she had to push her kids through a back window to get out.
“My son is scraped up, my little one, his face scraped up,” she said.
A series of now-viral TikTok videos showed crews boarding up the apartments despite being told tenants were inside.
Living conditions at the properties were deemed dangerous, with deteriorating stairs and balconies, and in need of immediate repairs, according to a Jan. 6 statement from Harvey city officials.
Officials said they did not evict anyone from the properties, but communicated the urgency of the situation to the property owners.
“The property owners were officially notified in writing that the building’s structural integrity had surpassed its life expectancy, and evacuation was mandatory by October 28, 2023. The responsibility to communicate this information to tenants was also emphasized,” officials said.
On Dec. 14, the Building Department determined the property posed an imminent safety risk, according to the statement.
According to city officials, the City of Harvey Police Department performed several inspections and wellness checks on Jan. 5 before the buildings were boarded up by property owners.
The statement makes no mention of people being trapped inside.
“Seems like there’s a lack of compassion around here,” Williams told NBC5 Chicago.
McClatchy News reached out to the property management company and the City of Harvey Police Department for comment on Jan. 8 but did not get an immediate response.
Harvey is about 25 miles south of Chicago.
This story was originally published January 8, 2024 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Residents say their Illinois apartment building was boarded up with them still inside."
