The last time Veldarin Jackson saw his mom was on Mother’s Day, where he and his family showered her with balloons, a card, and a meal at a restaurant. He said it was a “typical visit, sitting there, talking, laughing,” that she was always happy to see them.
But days later, on May 14, his mom, Janice Reed, and two other women were found dead in their apartments in a senior housing facility in Rogers Park. The building had received several complaints from residents about the units being too hot during a week of record-breaking highs. Now the Jackson family is suing building ownership and management for Reed’s death.
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The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in Cook County Monday on the basis of premises negligence against Gateway Apartments Limited, the company that owns the apartment building, and Hispanic Housing Development Corporation, the company that managed the building.
Reed, 68, was found unresponsive in her apartment at the James Sneider Apartments, 7450 N. Rogers Ave. after a friend had called for a well-being check after Reed had not shown up for lunch with the friend that day.
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Delores McNeely, 76, and Gwendolyn Osborne, 72, were also found dead in their apartments. Several temperature readings registered Reed’s unit at around 102 and 103 degrees at the time she was found, said attorney Larry Rogers Jr., who is representing the Reed-Jackson family, at a news conference Tuesday.
Rogers Jr. said no one could survive the “deplorable conditions” the building maintained despite complaints from residents and elected officials, such as Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th. Hadden spoke with building managers after residents reached out to her and was given the same erroneous response given to the building residents: that a Chicago heat ordinance required the building to keep heat on until June 1.
The ordinance sets a daytime temperature requirement of at least 68 degrees from Sept. 15 to June 1, but has no requirement that the heat has to stay on if temperatures will naturally exceed that threshold.
“We are deeply saddened by the deaths of three women who made our James Sneider Apartments their home. We mourn the loss of Janice Reed, Gwendolyn Osborne and Delores McNeely and send our deepest sympathies to their families and friends,” said Hipolito “Paul” Roldan, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Housing Development Corporation in an email to the Tribune. “Hispanic Housing Development Corporation has long been devoted to providing affordable homes and services that allow seniors to remain independent. The safety and security of all our residents have always been our highest priority. We are working with the city of Chicago and conducting our own investigation into last week’s circumstances.”
Rogers Jr. said the building ownership and management “refused to address the concerns of our most sensitive and tender citizens, our seniors.”
“When you ignore people’s complaints like this, people who have no ability to control the environment in their own properties, you have tragedies like this,” he said. “This is much more than just a negligent maintenance issue. This is a specific financial decision this owner and manager made to not operate air conditioning for months, not protect these citizens based upon the financial cost of operating the air conditioning.”
Veldarin Jackson, 50, was at the press conference with his wife, Adjoa Jackson, and he said his hope for the future is for something like this to not “happen to no one else.”
Jackson, who is an only child, said Reed has five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He said his mother was a “lovely lady,” always in good spirits and was very independent. When her unit started feeling too hot, she took matters into her own hands, Jackson said, by talking to management herself. She didn’t tell her son about her complaints, which he only found out about after the fact from a friend of his mother’s in the building.
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Jackson said his mother had lived in the building going on 11 years and never involved her family with concerns, if any, she had with the building. He said he and his family would regularly visit her at her apartment and felt comfortable with her being there.
“My mom was my father, my mother, my best friend, just everything,” he said. ”She meant the world to me.”
