Seniors flood City Hall to push for their ‘bill of rights’

Seniors packed City Hall on Wednesday to show their support for legislation that would boost safety measures and social services in senior buildings across the city.

The law — introduced Wednesday by Housing Committee Chair Ald. Harry Osterman (48th) — mandates all units in senior buildings include safety features like grab bars and abide by maximum temperature requirements. It also calls on senior building owners to “arrange for licensed social workers, community health workers, or community nurses to support residents” in their buildings, according to a copy of the ordinance.

Organizers with the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, an activist group with members in dozens of public- and private-senior buildings in Chicago, said the ordinance would “set the golden standard for aging in America” and dramatically improve living conditions for the city’s 25,000 seniors who live in subsidized rental buildings.

“The Senior Housing Ordinance would make sure that building owners [take] into account the individual needs of residents and the struggles that come with aging,” said Frank Hill, a caucus member and resident of the Chicago Housing Authority’s Judge Fisher Apartments in Edgewater.

“There would be oversight and consequences if residents aren’t treated safely. We should not have to pay the highest price, our lives, so that developers, can keep cutting corners when it comes to keeping seniors safe in senior buildings.”

Carlos Ballesteros/Sun-Times

The ordinance — known among caucus members as the “Senior Bill of Rights” — also codifies seniors’ right to organize tenants unions in their buildings. Under the law, building owners would also have to go through an “alternative dispute resolution process” mediated by social service staff before evicting a senior tenant or refusing to renew their lease.

Owners are also expected to provide a comprehensive security plan for the building, which is to be updated every 3 years.

During a news conference Wednesday at City Hall, supporters of the ordinance said protecting Chicago’s seniors is a matter of respect.

“We are all going to be aging — that’s where we’re headed,” said Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), one of the bill’s co-sponsors. “If we don’t think about what we want our lives to look like as we age and we think about where we want to live . . . we need to make sure we have the support, and this [ordinance is] the bare minimum.”

Carlos Ballesteros/Sun-Times

In January, the City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that requires developers to provide seniors with enough notice about repairs being done in their buildings and to help them transition into new apartments during renovations. And earlier this month, the Caucus called on the CHA to do a better job at offering its services for senior tenants with limited English proficiency.

Carlos Ballesteros is a corps members of Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of Chicago’s South Side and West Side.