Recommend a hotline for eviction housing assistance in Chicago

May 31, 2017 6:29 AM

Someone I know has mental health issues that have prevented him from locating new housing before his lease expires (tomorrow). He lives and works in Hyde Park. Is the hotline run by Illinois Tenants Union useful, and will they have the resources to help my friend?

My partner and I have had him call a mental health hotline, NAMI Chicago, and he hasn't been able to find resources through them quickly enough.

He has a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder and autism spectrum disorder. He is under a lot of stress and his reaction to it is to avoid the stressors. Right now he is capable of going to work, but I do not know any details about his financial situation beyond that he can't afford expensive care.

He needs help to handle logistics like finding him a new place to live, working out paperwork, and assisting him with health care providers. He does not have family and close friends who can do this for him.

In the immediate term, he needs the housing situation to be resolved. I suspect the landlord does not want to renew the lease due to the condition of the apartment. It resembles the condition of someone with a hording problem even though he doesn't have one.

posted by bleary to Health & Fitness (13 answers total)

In case you're not aware of how eviction works in Chicago, it may be helpful for both you and your friend to know that it isn't that fast. Functionally, he's going to have more than 60 days to find a new place before the legal process plays out and he is physically removed from the property.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:47 AM on May 31, 2017

The ITU is not helpful in this instance, they're for breaking leases and even then there is some controversy about that organization.

If the lease has not been renewed and expires tomorrow, there is probably another person expecting to move in. To advise your friend to stay put is wrong - evictions are for when there is a valid lease and the landlord has a legally actionable reason to break it. If he stays past his lease, the landlord can just get the sheriff to escort him off the property and pitch his things on the street, and then charge him for the privilege. Staying past your lease expiration is trespassing in Chicago. (DarlingBri, your link about eviction is correct, but this would not be an eviction.)

With a timeline this dire, I would recommend just calling the DHS mental health crisis services available: http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=30893 and I have heard good things about Community Crisis Centers of Chicago (C4).
posted by juniperesque at 7:58 AM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: There is not another person moving in. The stated reason the landlord is giving is that they want to make repairs.

I would honestly prefer not to advise him to stick around, but he has no place to go.
posted by bleary at 8:05 AM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: I'm wondering if a social worker or some person like that could call the landlord and work out some solution that does not involve immediately removing him from the premises tomorrow.
posted by bleary at 8:12 AM on May 31, 2017

I'm wondering if a social worker or some person like that could call the landlord and work out some solution that does not involve immediately removing him from the premises tomorrow.

I understand if this is more than you want to take on, but could *you* call the landlord? It sounds like your friend has been completely avoiding the situation - does the landlord even know things have progressed to the "call the sheriff" stage? If *someone* talks to the landlord and to your friend and works out a reasonable and realistic timeline for your friend moving out (a week? a month?) and some reasonable and realistic terms for the moveout (e.g. friend will actually remove all of his stuff from the home, pay for cleaning service and a dumpster bag, whatever).

Basically make it worth it to the landlord to give your friend time to move out.

Long term, yeah, it sounds your friend needs a case worker or something for general life upkeep. But in this particular emergency case there might not be any specific skills needed beyond being able to pick up the phone and explain the situation to the landlord.
posted by mskyle at 8:22 AM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: I am not so great at calling in situations like this, but I might resort to it. I'm going to ask my partner if he can do it but he is crazy busy today.

My intuition is that you are right and contacting the landlord to talk through this might help. I was afraid to recommend that. I don't actually know if it would make it worse or better and was hoping someone from a hotline could discuss it with him.
posted by bleary at 8:30 AM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: For any future people who find this page via a search, a friend has pointed me to Metropolitan Tenants Organization. I do not know if it is appropriate for my askme, but someone who finds this post may need it.
posted by bleary at 9:12 AM on May 31, 2017

I'm wondering if a social worker or some person like that could call the landlord and work out some solution that does not involve immediately removing him from the premises tomorrow.

I'm sorry but I'm super unclear. You said your friend's lease had been terminated, not that he had been evicted. He can sit there and wait to be evicted and will get an additional 60 days, minimum.

I would honestly prefer not to advise him to stick around, but he has no place to go.

Letting the eviction process play out will spare him from being homeless, and allow him to make plans, so this seems like the way to go to me.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:20 AM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: DarlingBri, I am confused due to juniperesque's reply.

The landlord informed him more than 30 days ago that the lease is not going to be renewed.

He has not been capable of finding a new place.

The landlord has not sent any eviction notices, but according to juniperesque he does not have at least 60 days because an eviction process is not relevant in this situation.

What is accurate? I'm hoping that he isn't ejected tomorrow, and that he has a grace period. (60 days would be great).
posted by bleary at 10:26 AM on May 31, 2017

I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Source: Chicago Renter's Resource Guide (chapter 3).

6. Lease End On The Stated Termination Date
If you have a lease with a specified termination date (rather than one that renews automatically each month), it will automatically end on that date unless some event – such as a breach of the lease you may move out, the landlord may choose to treat you as a holdover tenant and may file an eviction against you.

7. New Tenancy Created if Rent is Accepted After Termination
If you stay beyond the termination date and the landlord accepts rent from you, a new month – to – month tenancy is created, and must be terminated as set out in the oral lease section of this chapter.

8. Landlord Is Required To Give Notice of Non-Renewal
The Ordinance requires your landlord to give you notice in writing at least thirty (30) days prior to the termination date of the rental agreement if the landlord intends not to renew the existing rental agreement. If the landlord fails to provide the written notice, you may remain in the dwelling unit for up to (60) sixty days after the date the landlord gives you written notice of non-renewal. The terms and conditions of tenancy during this 60-day period remain as they were under the previous rental agreement before it ended.

Emphasis mine. It looks to me (again, not a lawyer, and I'm quoting from a non-official source), like your friend has been told orally that the lease won't be renewed -- is that accurate, or was it in writing? If it wasn't in writing, it appears he is able to stay in the unit for up to 60 days after he receives written notice -- and if rent is paid after the lease is up, this creates a month-to-month rental situation which needs to be ended appropriately to be legal.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:27 AM on May 31, 2017

Practically, is your frined able to pay rent? It doesn't sound from your explanation that he's behind. How motivated is the landlord to get this done ASAP? Maybe you can talk to them, as noted above, and negotiate a 30-day or 60-day period to help your friend find another place -- unless the landlord needs to make these repairs right away for some reason, they'd probably prefer to continue receiving rent and knowing that the tenant will be out by X date, rather than deal with lawyering and evictions, etc.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:32 AM on May 31, 2017

Practically, landlords end leases for all sorts of reasons. He may need to do repairs, but it's more likely that he saw the state the apartment was in, and decided to not renew the lease based on the damage and his fear of future damage. He may be realizing that industrial cleaners or expensive work is in his future. He is likely regretting renting to someone he thinks a hoarder and catastrophizing. He may have already lined up the repairs and/or hired someone to rip out all the carpets/paint/replace appliances/etc. You don't know until you ask him, but he is likely hedging his bets against a landlord nightmare. He is unlikely to be able to re-rent the unit until significant work is done, and the longer he lets your friend live there, the more expensive the work will be.

I'm not saying this to be cruel. These are the calculations the landlord is doing, and if you choose to call the landlord, this is what is likely happening in his internal monologue.

If written notice from the landlord not to renew was provided within the 30 days, your friend's presence therein after tomorrow is trespassing. I wouldn't want it to come to that, but it's reality. I have been a landlord in Chicago. Eviction is a process by which a tenant has broken lease terms and needs to be removed, and that takes ~60 days (and is a true landlord's worst nightmare) and it does not apply here because after tomorrow it sounds like there is no valid lease. If your friend did not receive written notice that the lease was not being renewed, he is on a month-to-month lease as of tomorrow, and the landlord now has a 60-day notice period. So if there was no written notice, and it comes tomorrow, your friend has 60 days as of tomorrow to vacate. Note that in Illinois, written notice can be via email or via actual paper writing. The landlord would need to provide proof if there were a legal kerfuffle.

To make this super-duper clear:
Eviction the noun is just removing someone from the premises. I evict my dog from my trash room daily.
Eviction the legal process is different from eviction the noun, and involves the breach of lease terms by a tenant, a landlord seeking to remedy the breach in terms by ending the lease and subsequent removal from the property, a court date, and the Sheriff.

You mentioned that your friend is on the autism spectrum. If this is an actual diagnosis, he may be able to seek housing help from the Anixter Center.
posted by juniperesque at 12:03 PM on May 31, 2017

Response by poster: I've heard back from the friend. He got a reply to an email he sent last night asking for two weeks extension. They are allowing him to stay until the middle of next month.

Thanks for the above links to social services. Are there other organizations that people can recommend who will provide assistance with arranging housing?

From what I understand, he has an official diagnosis of ASD and GAD.
posted by bleary at 12:57 PM on May 31, 2017