It took the death of 9-year-old Tiara Woods, plunging three stories through a broken porch railing, to cast a spotlight on the dangers at a South Side apartment building.
Yet two teams of government inspectors have documented unsafe conditions for years at the building at Bishop Street and Garfield Boulevard.
While the building’s owners repeatedly failed inspections and accumulated city fines, they collected $61,000 in taxpayer-funded rents since 2003, a Tribune analysis found.
At least two apartments in the building are part of the subsidized housing program known as Section 8. As detailed in a Tribune investigation last month, landlords in the program have failed four of every 10 inspections over the last five years, while collecting $1.2 billion in government subsidies.
The building where Tiara died has had its share of problems.
During the last two years, Section 8 units in the building have failed 14 of 19 inspections undertaken to ensure safe and sanitary conditions for the low-income tenants.
According to Chicago Housing Authority records, all 14 failures were considered the fault of the owners–Garfield Partners LLC until last September, then AM Development LLC. The manager of both companies is Alex Britva.
Violations included ceiling leaks, electrical hazards, missing smoke detectors, broken windows and unsecured gas lines.
The Section 8 inspections, made by a private contractor named CHAC, are separate from city housing inspections. City records obtained by the Tribune show numerous other violations at the building during the last two years, such as defective plumbing, exposed wiring, a pool of sewer water in the basement and broken stairs.
On Friday, city officials cited additional code violations at the building, including missing porch banisters, missing smoke detectors, rotted floors and broken handrails.
Britva and two of his attorneys declined to comment last week.
The city is now forcing Britva’s company to make repairs. As Tiara’s funeral was held Friday morning, a Cook County judge ordered Britva’s company to keep tenants off the porches, except for emergencies, and prohibited renting or occupation of any vacant units until all repairs are made.
Britva’s company has until June 30 to deliver a plan on how the 17-unit building’s porches are to be fixed.
Tiara, who lived nearby in the West Englewood neighborhood, was at the building June 4. During a game of tag that spilled onto the porch that humid night, Tiara twisted her ankle and grasped the railing for support. As some of her playmates tried to grab her, Tiara fell three stories to a cement courtyard below, tenants said.
Charles Walker, a city building inspector, is being fired after he spent only 13 minutes at the building during a scheduled inspection the day before the accident, then filed a false report after the accident, officials said.
Several tenants said their complaints have gone unheard for years by Britva, his employees and government inspectors.
Pamela Johnson, a subsidized tenant who lives directly below the site of the accident, said she has called CHAC repeatedly asking to be moved out of her unit.
She tried one more time Wednesday, when a CHAC inspector visited in the wake of the accident.
“I can’t live like this,” Johnson told the inspector. With a Tribune reporter present, she complained of mice that jump into her bed and neighborhood teenagers who push their way past an unsecured door to loiter in the building hallways. “I’m requiring emergency moving papers,” she urged, meaning permission to leave her unit due to life-threatening conditions. “Can you give them to me?”
The inspector, who declined to identify himself, suggested Johnson telephone a “housing specialist” at CHAC. He later failed the unit for its unstable porch system and deteriorating paint, according to records.
“I’m just so sick of it,” said Johnson, whose home has had five failed CHAC inspections out of eight since 2003, all blamed on the owner. The government once suspended subsidies after consecutive failures.
William Riley, executive director of CHAC, said his company plans to investigate Britva. As the Tribune investigated Section 8 this spring, Riley and other officials pledged to crack down on property managers and owners who have a history of inspection failures, outstanding fines or unpaid taxes. The CHA also promised better communications with city officials.
“We didn’t know they had this issue with the city,” Riley said, referring to multiple code violations inside the building at Bishop and Garfield. “Getting that information from the city on a regular basis is going to give us more ability to have good enforcement.”
Garfield Partners first appeared in the Section 8 program in late 2002, agency records show. Though it appears to be a small company, it owns at least one more property on the South Side, an apartment building at 75th Street and Colfax Avenue. Overall, the company has failed 27 of 42 inspections. The two subsidized units inside the Garfield Boulevard building are currently the only two the company has enrolled in the Section 8 program, Riley said.
Garfield Properties entered into a consent decree with the city last year after repeatedly failing to correct 34 code violations inside its Garfield Boulevard building, city Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said. Most of the violations were fixed less than a month after the agreement, and a fine of $1,060 was reduced to $500, which the company paid.
Rena Harris, a subsidized tenant in the building across the courtyard from where Tiara fell, has lived there with her seven children for two years. During that time her apartment failed eight out of 10 inspections, with the rent cut off three separate times after repeated failures by the owners to fix violations, records show.
Among the problems cited were lack of heat, no gas, ceiling leaks, missing smoke detectors and an unsecured gas line in the stove. The apartment also had several mouse holes in its walls and a toilet sitting off its foundation, leaking water into the apartment below.
Riley said CHAC is preparing to move Harris and her seven children out of the unit.
Standing near a wobbly back porch above a group of children in a squirt gun fight, Harris pointed out missing wood planks in the outdoor stairwell.
“I don’t let my kids come out here,” she said. “A little baby can fall right through.”
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Building’s string of property violations
City officials are scrutinizing the building where a 9-year-old girl fell to her death on June 4 from a collapsed porch railing. In years past, Section 8 and city inspectors had identified multiple violations that give a glimpse into the living conditions at the Garfield Boulevard property.
VIOLATIONS IDENTIFIED BY SECTION 8 AND CITY INSPECTORS
Site of collapsed porch railing (area map):
1421-1425 W. Garfield Blvd
SECTION 8:
SEPT. 17, 2003
Inadequate heating equipment
OCT. 9, 2003
Inadequate heating equipment
DEC. 11, 2003
Falling and leaky ceiling
Missing stair handrail
FEB. 11, 2004
Ceiling buckling
Defective window panes
No gas in kitchen
DEC. 21, 2004
Hole in the wall
Open gas line on oven
JUNE 8, 2005
Unstable porch (unit below accident)
JUNE 10, 2005
Loose bricks
Porch missing banister
Roaches and rats
Rotted flooring
No smoke detector
CITY:
APRIL 12, 2002
Missing mortar from exterior wall
Defective window panes
MARCH 10, 2003
Broken door locks
Loose chimney bricks
Open mortar joints on exterior wall
Defective window panes
JUNE 2, 2003
No heat in building
No hot water in building
Falling brick over walkway from exterior wall
Missing guard rail; missing handrails
Rotten basement door frame
Defective plumbing; basement flooded
Basement filled with debris
Missing smoke detector
JAN. 20, 2004
Loose toilet
Defective sewer openings
Leaky basement ceiling
Stagnant sewage water in basement
Exposed wiring
Uncovered electrical panels
Missing light fixture
Sources: City of Chicago
Inspectional Services, CHA, ESRI, GDT
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