Beleaguered residents of Autumn Ridge Apartments voiced their anger and frustration about the decrepit living conditions in which they live to seemingly stunned members of the Park Forest Village Board Monday night.
Tenants, who have monthly rent payments of between $1,175 and $1,900, described deplorable living conditions including roaches in refrigerators, feces in pools, and the lack of basic needs such as hot water in winter and air conditioning in summer.
Throughout the 75 minutes in which their grievances were aired, the lack of repairs needed by on-site management in the 380-unit complex on Sycamore Drive was a cry for help in their complaints.
“Do something,” demanded Deserae Jones. “Please do it fast.”
“Where have you been”? Derin Curtis asked the board. “We are mortified. Where is that help?”
Ezekiel Mhoon said he saw doors which could not close and were fixed with duct tape.
“They took people off the street to fix something, but they didn’t know how to fix anything,” Mhoon said.
Reva Grant cited degrading conditions such as “broken promises and flooded bathrooms.”
Other tenants described a disgusting odor left in an apartment after a man died there, colored water coming from faucets, non-working elevators, the lack of personal security and the absence of any supervision by management.
Normally citizen comments are heard at the end of a Village Board meeting, but Mayor Joe Woods opted to move that section to the start.
“I wanted the citizens to be heard,” Woods said. “I didn’t want them to wait until we got through all the other items on the long agenda.”
Woods said until “we actually see evidence that improvements are being made and that bills are being paid,” the village will seek legal steps to end “the long history of neglect” at the complex.
Woods and Trustee Randall White were the only board members to tour the complex with White helping to install air-conditioning units and fans in some apartments. For their part, other village trustees seemed shocked and stunned by these accounts.
Trustee Maya Hardy said this was the first time she heard how bad conditions were and Trustee Tiffani Graham admitted that she had not paid attention.
“I have to do my homework,” Graham said.
Fines levied against Autumn Ridge have had little effect, with the village starting legal proceedings in Will County, where Autumn Ridge is located, calling for the appointment of a receiver selected to collect rents and make repairs.
Although village officials began talks with two investors displaying an interest to take over the property, there are no guarantees.
During trustee comments, John Moore gave his “deepest apologies” to residents as he wondered as to what can be done to remedy the crumbling state of the four buildings in the complex weighed against the possibility of displacing tenants.
Any solution he said, “may be drastic.”
The board meeting came just five hours after village officials held initial meetings with a potential buyer for the property owned by Red Oak Management.
Jerry Shnay is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
