Three Buildings, One Struggle Against Displacement
While cities across the US deal with unprecedented housing crises, management companies and luxury developers get rich off mass displacement. In Albany Park, Chicago, one of the most diverse working-class neighborhoods in the country, gentrification has begun tearing through communities largely unnoticed, while city council-people cheer on new business and development. Ron Abrams, the managing broker of Silver Property Group — one such company among many — has taken on the mantle of “The Eviction King of Albany Park.” Here we trace the connections between three of the many mass evictions Silver has carried out, and community resistance against mass displacement.
33rd Ward Alderman Deb Mell presenting a giant check to gentrifying campaign donor Silver Property Group. Albany Park Chamber of Commerce
In July of 2017, Ron Abrams of Silver Property Group rubbed shoulders with 33rd Ward Alderman Deb Mell. Silver had completed renovations of its property at 3001 W Lawrence and was receiving a $20,000 rebate check from the Albany Park Chamber of Commerce as part of a façade beautification program. Things weren’t all big checks and smiles down the street, however. At 4500 N Albany Ave, just days earlier, Silver Property Group served long term Albany Park tenants 30-day notices.
The storefront at 3001 W Lawrence was improved, though its tenants, a storytelling event company and a craft coffee roaster, feel a little more Wicker than Albany Park. This building is one of at least 17 that the company has purchased in Albany Park in the last six years. The disconnect between these two scenes is jarring. But one need not even travel those few blocks to learn that evictions are an integral part of Ron Abrams and Silver Property Group’s business model.
Doubled Rents or Nothing
The celebration at 3001 W Lawrence was also the site of a mass eviction in 2014, just months after Silver Property Group bought the 32-unit courtyard building.
An estimated 170 Albany Park households — most of them low-income immigrants, many undocumented, and families with young children — have been displaced following Silver’s building purchases, which are then superficially renovated and put back on the market at much higher rents.
In the case of 3001 W Lawrence, Alderman Mell used the language of “problem buildings” to justify the mass eviction, invoking fear of gangs.
In a puff piece about Silver’s plans to renovate, Mell’s Chief of Staff at the time, Dana Fritz, talked about the building’s graffiti, broken doors, and horror stories from the neighbors. Then, Ron Abrams is quoted as saying he wants to “make it safer for everyone.” It should be noted that while many people were interviewed for this piece, not one was a tenant of the building in question. What would the tenants have had to say about their own homes or who was responsible for the state the building was in?
In reality, many of these tenants are victims of gang violence themselves, but attempts to address the problem often exclude them, focusing on the safety of wealthier white neighbors.
Some of the tenants elected to stay despite the pressure. They were there for six months, organizing delegations to Silver’s office, highlighting the eviction in the media, and attempting to get more time as winter approached. After approaching Alderman Deb Mell for support, the tenants found that Mell saw their building as a “problem building” and was uninterested in supporting them. While going through the court process and attempting to negotiate with Abrams through the winter months, tenants also sought adequate housing for relocation.
The economic and psychological stress of these evictions weighed heavy: from families with small children moving in the winter nights to an elderly tenant that had lived in the building for decades deciding to move back to Mexico. During their last couple of months in the building, only a handful of the tenants remained, weathering both the eviction proceedings and horrific conditions caused by the construction Silver had already started. Is this what Silver Property means when they promise to make buildings safer for everyone?
In the end, the landlord responsible for the building’s “problem” status was allowed to make a good profit by selling to Silver, who renovated the units to put them back on the market at increased rents, leaving tenants who had no control over the building’s conditions to pay the price.
Silver is known to double rents in some acquired buildings, with 1-bedrooms going for $1,200 and 2-bedrooms for $1,525 — far from affordable for working-class families. As of March 2017, half of the units at 3001 W Lawrence were still empty. This speaks to the fact that Silver, and many other developers, are more willing to have vacant units than to house lower-income tenants.
Christiana Tenants Union
Many of the tenants from 3001 W Lawrence, scrambling for affordable housing in the aftermath of their eviction, were forced to leave the neighborhood. One tenant, Patricia, and her family were lucky enough to find an apartment in gentrifying Albany Park at 4815 N Christiana. In a cruel turn, Silver Property purchased that building, too, in 2016. Here we begin to see a pattern: Another building of exclusively Latinx families victimized by Silver Property Group.
After five months of ignoring tenants’ repair requests, neglecting the building, yet collecting their rents, Silver Property Group served 30-day eviction notices without warning. Silver strategically neglects building conditions in order to pressure existing tenants to move out. Of the 17 buildings it has purchased in the neighborhood since 2011, 12 went on to fail property inspection. Rather than give the tenants a warning of what was to come, Abrams elected to blindside them, pressuring them to leave in the middle of winter and the school year. Patricia put her experience fighting Silver to use and promptly organized her neighbors.
Tenants at 4815 N Christiana holding a press conference
In this case, the Albany Park community pushed for negotiations. Neighbors on the same block as the tenants rallied around their cause and the principal of Hibbard Elementary also stepped in to help mediate negotiations and protect her students — 30 children living in the building were enrolled at Hibbard at the time. Tenants organized a slew of press conferences, delegations and worked with lawyers towards building a discrimination case. In the end, 15 tenants signed agreements with Abrams for extra time in the building prior to the court process. That time proved vital — many of these tenants were able to find housing in the community and their new move-out date fell during their kids’ summer break.
Fighting Displacement Takes More Than Empty Promises
Though she was involved, Alderman Mell acted as a sort of intermediary for Abrams, interjecting in his favor and refusing to leverage for tenants. After their in-person negotiations, Jason Hernandez, Mell’s Chief of Staff, was the person relaying information from Abrams to tenants — Hernandez had become Abrams’ de-facto rep, paid for by taxpayers.
Alderman Mell’s intervention on Silver’s behalf shouldn’t come as a total surprise. She has received $3,300 in campaign contributions from Silver and Abrams since 2014, though she recently told the Chicago Reader she would stop taking money from Abrams because of his contribution to gentrification in the ward. However, her commitment to stemming the tide of gentrification seems to end there. Public records show that Mell has taken as much as $40,000 in donations from real estate interests, including developers, landlords, management companies, and investors.
While Mell was singing Silver’s praises in July of this year, tenants at 4500 N Albany (Sunnyside Manor) were contemplating their next moves in the wake of the notices that gave them until the end of August to move out. Though by now Silver’s tactics — buying and neglecting low-income buildings, then moving to evict those who haven’t been scared away by unacceptable living conditions — may be familiar to us, it blindsided these tenants, some of whom had lived in the building for 12 years.
They formed the Sunnyside Manor Tenants Union and concentrated their efforts on simply trying to get a meeting with their absent landlord. They even implored Mell to pressure Abrams, but she took a disempowered stance once again, making empty promises and failing to arrange a meeting.
Sunnyside Manor Tenants Union vs. Ron Abrams
After his experience with tenants at 4815 N Christiana, Abrams was not interested in negotiations. A month after delivering the 30-day notice, he filed for eviction against tenants.
In an interview with the Chicago Reader, Abrams compared the Sunnyside Manor Tenants Union’s attempts to negotiate to “making a $3,000 offer on a $30,000 car.” This is a particularly callous way to refer to working people trying to hold onto their homes while under unreasonable pressure to pack up and leave within 30 days. Abrams and rich developers like him see working families fighting for shelter and economic security the same way they see negotiations over any commodity. Where the futures and safety of children, the elderly and the disabled hang in the balance, Ron Abrams & people like him only see deals & the potential for profit.
Sunnyside Manor Tenants Union member Mario speaking outside the tenants’ first eviction hearing.
Silver’s decision to file eviction before even meeting with the tenants union will put a mark on their renting history, affecting their chances of finding affordable housing in the future — even if they win their court case. At present, tenants are awaiting jury selection for their next hearing. Despite the risk that going through the court process poses, the tenants continue fighting to remain in their homes.
In the midst of Chicago’s housing crisis, many groups are proposing policy consolations: just-cause eviction law, rent control, more democratic zoning processes. But when our leaders refuse to make examples of millionaire developers like Ron Abrams, it’s clear where their loyalties lie. Perhaps these low-income tenants are unable to cut Mell fat campaign checks the way Abrams has, but their presence is what makes up the fabric of Albany Park, one of the country’s most diverse and vibrant neighborhoods. Silver Property Group and Ron Abrams have made clear their vision of Albany Park: One in which low-income immigrants are edged out to make way for hypothetical white tenants that may not even materialize.
