Amid freezing temperatures, tenants of MLK Plaza Apartments battle unsafe conditions and soaring utility bills
CHICAGO – As winter tightens its icy grip on the Windy City, residents of the Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza Apartments in East Garfield Park say they’ve been living without heat since November. The bitter cold has forced families to resort to desperate and unsafe measures to stay warm.
Tenants, including Shervazs Williams, expressed their frustration, stating their heating systems failed during the first week of November. Another resident, Angela Parchman, detailed the risky advice they were given: “They told us to buy heaters and open our ovens. Do you know how dangerous leaving our oven open is?”
Families welcomed reporters into their freezing apartments, located in the 3200 block of West Madison Street, to witness the harsh realities of their daily lives. Many have relied on space heaters, boiling water, and leaving ovens on just to combat the plummeting temperatures.
For Parchman, the added strain goes beyond the cold. A recent ComEd notice informed her that her electricity usage had spiked by 179% this billing cycle. “I’m paying nearly $1,400 a month to live here,” she said. “We don’t have carbon monoxide detectors, no fire extinguishers, and there are cracks and leaks in the ceiling.”