‘Unlivable’ conditions festered at Chicago apartment building long before jarring immigration raid
Feces smeared on walls. Swarms of gnats. Broken elevators and busted locks on front doors. Residents of the South Shore apartment complex targeted by federal agents blame the owner and property manager for essentially abandoning them, and they say the city did little to help.
By Mariah Woelfel, Sophie Sherry, Tom Schuba, Nader Issa, Esther Yoon-Ji Kang, Amy Qin and Alden Loury Oct 10, 2025, 6:30am EDT
A week after federal agents arrested dozens of people during a military-style immigration raid of a South Shore apartment building, resident Cassandra Murray slowly inches down four flights of stairs because the elevators are broken again.
Murray is disabled and walks with a limp. The 55-year-old wears plastic gloves as she holds onto a railing, pointing out urine spots and feces smeared on the wall in the building where she has lived for a decade.
Murray is on her way to see a new apartment. She says her move wasn’t prompted by the harrowing raid or the Venezuelan immigrants who were targeted — it was the building’s long history of squalor and mismanagement.
https://www.wbez.org/public-safety/2025/10/10/chicago-immigration-raid-south-shore-apartment-donald-trump-ice
