Chicago’s undocumented seniors face slim and dangerous housing options

CHICAGO — In the three days before Lilia had to vacate her basement apartment last summer, she cried herself to sleep each night. Her husband, Cipriano, 70, was in a hospital bed recovering from an emergency amputation of his left foot due to gangrene complications. But their landlords of more than a decade told Lilia, 69, it was time for them to go. And without a lease, she had no choice but to oblige.

“I packed all of our things by myself,” she said in a recent interview, wiping away tears.

“Estabamos practicamente en la calle.” We were practically on the street, she said.

(Injustice Watch and the Chicago Tribune agreed to identify Lilia and Cipriano only by their first names because they are in the country without authorization and fear retaliation from immigration authorities.)

After an ambulance picked up Cipriano in September, the landlords told Lilia it was time for them to move out. A city inspector was on the way, they told her, and the basement unit, for which they paid $500 a month, didn’t have a second exit, making it illegal to rent. The inspector never showed up, Lilia said, but the landlords didn’t relent, and the couple vacated the basement by the end of the month.

With the help of a community organizer, the couple was able to find a new apartment in West Humboldt Park, the same neighborhood they’d lived in since emigrating from Mexico a little over 30 years ago. Their new landlord charges them $700 a month for a sunny second-floor unit in a classic Chicago two-flat, well below market rate.

But the couple isn’t able to work