By Bob Seidenberg
Tenants were relocated from 2018 Wesley Ave., one of the Wesley buildings the city has determined needs major renovation work, four days earlier than the original May 13 deadline, with police and a board-up crew making a Thursday night visit to the property to start sealing up the units.
Residents occupying the building were told they would have to vacate their apartments immediately following an inspection the previous day that deemed the building unsafe and at risk of collapsing at any point.
“A section of structural steel support for the outdoor stairs and walkway has failed underneath the upper platform and is currently hanging from its last connection point,” wrote City Manager Luke Stowe in a letter attached to one of the stairwells of the building. “This is causing the concrete platform it supports to sag and crack. The platform may collapse at any time.”
In response to a RoundTable inquiry, Stowe said the city is expected to release a more detailed statement on the action later today. (Update: On Friday the city released this statement.)
Council Member Bobby Burns (5th Ward), in an email response to residents challenging the action, maintained the three households at 2018 Wesley were evacuated for their own safety.
“All affected residents were relocated to an extended-stay accommodation funded by the city,” he said. “They will also be provided with food vouchers, transportation support, and assistance with storage units.”
‘It’s all a mess’
One longtime resident of the Wesley building told the RoundTable she received a phone call about 2:30 p.m. Thursday from a city official informing her “that the building was getting worse and we need to leave right away and that they had mandated orders for for us to leave.”
“It’s all a mess,” she said of the contradictory messages the tenants have been receiving from the city.
William Carter, a resident of a building at 2014 Wesley Ave., said he looked out his window after 8 p.m. and saw “people pulling up and all these lights out there, and one of the tenants being escorted down the stairs.”
Patricia Aikens, a 31-year resident of the building next door – 2024 Wesley Ave. – said she received confirmation earlier in the day that people in her building are still under a Monday deadline to vacate. Nevertheless, she said she’s worried where she will go under the city plan. The city has been working with Connections for the Homeless to find alternative housing.
Lack of communication
Back at home Thursday night, “they were saying these people got to get out,” Aikens said. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything about it. Nobody tells me nothing.”
Darlene Cannon, one of the residents who gathered at the scene to protest, wrote Burns after the action and asked “did a structural engineering firm perform the inspection on 2018 Wesley because I know the city doesn’t have a structural engineer on staff.
“The police arrived in the darkness of night when Black people were getting ready for bed and removed them from their homes,” she wrote. “This is reminiscent of Klu Klux Klan actions of the south.”
Via email, Burns responded: “By the time the police arrived to secure 2018 Wesley so that it could be boarded up – primarily to protect belongings still in three of the units, and secondarily to ensure no one remained in or accessed the dangerous building – the three households in 2018 Wesley had already been relocated.”
Burns wrote that a Health and Human Services Department outreach team facilitated the tenants’ move without police involvement. “The decision was not made suddenly in the evening; the city had been in constant contact with the residents of 2018 Wesley throughout the day,” he wrote, adding, “I believe all relocations were completed before 8pm. Some residents may have returned on their own at some point.”