The city says the building is shut down.
The residents say otherwise.
I stood in front of it. I spoke to the people still living inside. I recorded what they told me.
What they said wasn’t just about one address. It was about every agency that shows up late, says too little, and leaves the real issue untouched.
“This that building that they shut down, right?”
“Yeah… we gotta go to court Tuesday.”
The building was flagged as unsafe. But the tenants never truly left. They’re still inside because they were given no real alternative. Now, instead of support, they’re being taken to court.
“So has anybody from the city government itself come to talk to you guys?”
“To say what? To do what?”
No one from the city has addressed the actual condition of the property. Residents told me the only official presence they’ve seen came from ICAN — not offering help, just pressure to relocate.
“Oh, to get you to fuck out of here. But not to do nothing about the building itself.”
“Right.”
The people know exactly what’s happening. They know who cuts the checks. They know that ICAN has funding ties to law enforcement. They understand the difference between help and removal.
“ICAN gets funded by some fucking department of correction… so they probably sent them out here to get y’all out of here… So they don’t have to deal with the consequences of why the fuck the building is like that in the first place.”
This isn’t about a single structure. It’s a pattern.
Declare the building unsafe. Push the residents out. Leave the building standing. Walk away.
But some people never left — because no one fixed the root cause.
No one repaired the damage.
No one offered housing.
Only warnings. And court dates.
Category: Public Safety
Tags: housing, city negligence, codes enforcement, ICAN, displacement