In Harvey, confusion and a blunder led to a startling wake-up call for residents on one sultry Friday night. Rudolph Williams, aged 73, was trapped inside his own apartment after crews silently boarded up his door and window. A cell phone video provided by NBC Chicago showed Williams' nephew in a frantic attempt to access the Harvey residence near 145th Street and South Halsted.
"My nephew called me... and said, 'You’re boarded up here?' I said, 'What?' I opened the door and that’s when I saw there was a board right there. I looked at the window, same thing," Williams told NBC Chicago. He was later freed when someone removed the boards. Crisis responder Andrew Holmes noted at least four people, including a mother and her two children, had been similarly confined.
An official statement by the City of Harvey, retrieved from their Facebook page, explained that actions were part of a safety response to the 'imminent risk' posed by the deteriorating state of both Harvey apartment buildings at 14445 and 14437 S. Halsted Street. This action came after investigations dating back to October 2023 and dialogues with the property owners regarding the safety risks of the building's structure and illegal activities.
According to the city of Harvey, the property owners were given until October 28, to evacuate the buildings, following a mandatory notification that the properties' structural integrity had exceeded its life expectancy. The city underlined that communicating this to tenants was the owners' responsibility. Notably, Mary Brooks, another resident, conveyed to NBC Chicago, her expectation that her unit would be boarded up the following week, stating "I hope the owners could never do this again to anyone, anywhere, and I hope they’ll be held accountable, some type of way, financially."
The incident has residents like Williams questioning the methods, "Disappointing in the way that people, you know, the way things happened, seems like there’s lack of compassion around here," he explained to NBC Chicago. The city claims that no evictions took place and the board-ups weren't their doing.
