SYCAMORE – Linda Huffman has fewer than
40 days to pack up her belongings in the apartment she has lived in for the past six years.
She said the stress of finding a new place to live that she can afford has set her back about a year with her multiple sclerosis treatment progress.
Huffman said her MS and living on disability income will make moving out of her apartment a challenge, and her aide is on vacation during part of the notice period. She said she feels the whole eviction process is unfair because tenants are struggling to get the money to afford a security deposit and the first month of rent for a new place in about a month.
But, Huffman said, the new landlords are doing everything legally throughout the process.
“So there’s really nothing that we can do,” she said.
Huffman is one of 15 tenants who were served termination notices April 19 saying everyone had to be out of their apartments by May 31. She said she was told by old management that insurance inspectors were coming, not that there was going to be a change in ownership.
The Sycamore City Council will vote Monday night on a Gateway Improvement Project grant unanimously recommended by the city’s architectural review committee for the long-neglected properties at 471 and 477 E. State St. The review committee voted 4-0, and the council meets at 7 p.m. Monday at the Sycamore Center, 308 W. State St.
Huffman said her lease expired about five years ago. Tim Royer, one of the new owners of the properties, said a lot of the current tenants are in similar situations, in which their initial leases expired and automatically became month-to-month leases by law.
Royer said he and the other new owner, Scott Carlson, owned the building for less than two weeks before they handed out the eviction notices and began gutting vacant units and applying for a Gateway Improvement Program grant to help with exterior renovation costs for the two buildings. He said residents need to be out of their apartments during interior renovations, which are not covered by the city grant, because they must shut off all utilities.
Buildings weren’t maintained
Laura Petryka, a former resident who recently vacated her apartment in one of the buildings after being served the eviction notice, said she lived in her apartment for more than a decade and didn’t have working heat during most of that time. She said she’d heard there were problems in other apartments, as well, such as bed bugs and cockroach infestations.
Petryka said she was the first tenant who was able to move out of her unit after being served the eviction notice from Royer and Carlson.
“I’m just very lucky that I had a very good boss that helped me,” Petryka said.
Huffman said she never knew the last name of her landlord, but she said she made a check out to SKV Construction every month.
Royer said he and Carlson are aware of the previous owners not maintaining the apartments as they should have. He said other violations from the previous owner included no running water and no smoke detectors in any of the units.
Royer said current tenants were not charged rent for May as a result of the eviction notice and will get their security deposits back once they vacate their apartments.
“We are doing everything we can to accommodate these people, and are doing everything by law,” Royer said.
Petryka said the old landlords were horrible, but she is concerned about a seeming lack of empathy from the new owners about the situation.
“I don’t think they have the understanding and compassion for the people that are put through this,” Petryka said.
While walking through a recently gutted unit, Royer and Carlson said they felt bad about the conditions that current residents have tolerated for years.
“They’ve been living here with a bad landlord,” Royer said.
Improvement grant sought
Royer and Carlson are asking for $10,000 for exterior improvements on the properties – $5,000 for each building – through the Gateway Improvement Program. The program is meant to improve the aesthetic appearance of buildings at the city’s gateway areas by giving money to property owners to make exterior improvements, according to city documents.
Sycamore City Manager Brian Gregory said the city’s Architectural Review Committee looks at Gateway Improvement Program grant applications from an objective and technical standpoint. He said it’s up to landlords applying for the grants to figure out how it affects their tenants.
“When it’s a private matter, that’s not something that’s in the city’s purview,” Gregory said.
Petryka said there was no income limit to live in the building, but some of the more than 20 two-bedroom units were Section 8 housing.
Royer and Carlson said they plan to reopen the renovated units in October. Royer said rent for each unit is between $600 and $800 a month, and he doesn’t plan to raise the rent for the new units.
When asked whether she would return, Huffman said she wouldn’t come back because she is skeptical the apartments’ rent will stay the same.
For the foreseeable future, Huffman said, she is looking to move to University Village off Annie Glidden Road in DeKalb. Whenever she mentions that to people, she said, they mention crime in the area as a main concern.
“OK, well, it’s better than sleeping under a bridge,” Huffman said.