Historic Chatham Park Village Cooperative defaults on mortgage as residents disagree on property’s future

Peppi Wilson, 60, remembers the "glory years" of the Chatham Park Village Cooperative.

He grew up at the property playing hide-and-seek on the verdant grounds, sledding down small hills that once seemed big. Residents across the 23-acre property knew him, and Wilson recalls some yelling at him to "get off our grass!" There was "a sense of community," Wilson said. "People cared."

After a handful of years away, Wilson moved back to the co-op around 2005 when his mother got sick. But the co-op wasn't the same. Wilson said he no longer felt the sense of community that he remembered fondly from his childhood.

Wilson moved out of the co-op in April, exchanging a two-bedroom duplex that cost him around $877 a month for a pricier rental downtown. His unit at the co-op is still vacant.

"Ten years from now, you'll come by this place and there'll be a gate surrounding it, and everything's going to be empty," Wilson said. "That's where we're headed if something isn't done soon."

Once noted for its beautiful and carefully tended facilities, the Chatham Park Village Cooperative has offered affordable homeownership on Chicago's South Side for more than 60 years. Today more than 20% of the over 500 units at Chatham Park Village are vacant, said co-op board member Eneal Lee, and the property is at risk of foreclosure as the co-op has defaulted on its mortgage, according to documents reviewed by the Tribune.

Although residents describe the cooperative as "quiet" and "peaceful," underneath that veneer lies decades of deferred maintenance and a tense environment where residents can't agree on a path forward for the property.

The property, about a 15-minute drive south from the rising Obama Presidential Center , is made up of red brick duplexes and two- to three-story apartment buildings arranged in courts with white trim doors and tree-lined streets.

Doctors, lawyers, working mothers and even Tuskegee Airmen called the co-op home during its heyday, when residents said there was a waitlist for units.

In February, the Chatham Park Cooperative was notified by its loan servicer, National Cooperative Bank, that it had defaulted on its loan for more than 30 days because the property's insurance was not in compliance with the terms of the loan, according to a document shared with the Tribune. As a result of the technical default, the bank placed its own insurance on the property, which is typically more expensive for the borrower than a standard insurance policy. National Cooperative Bank declined to comment on the terms of the default.

In the spring, residents met with a bankruptcy attorney to discuss future options for how to liquidate the co-op's assets to solve some of its financial problems, with the only assets being the property's 63 buildings, according to Wilson. A representative for the Center for Shared Ownership — a group that helps preserve and expand housing cooperatives and is currently assisting the Chatham Park co-op — said she could not comment on the co-op's affairs.

Janise Alston, the current co-op board president, did not return requests for comment.

Ald. William Hall, whose 6th Ward includes the Chatham Park cooperative, has met with co-op members three times over the past two years. He said he offered what limited support he could — listening to their issues and helping to fix up some of the infrastructure near the co-op — but he could not provide the financial support they asked for, given that it is a private property.

Instead, the co-op needs to have a strong board and come up with a major redevelopment plan to address the infrastructure issues, Hall said. And, he said, if the co-op does not turn itself around, it could mean residents end up unhoused.

"This is a history, a canvas of what Black economics was for so many of the middle class," Hall said. "And so losing this, possibly, is losing a chapter in Black wealth, Black history. ... I don't want the distress of displacement on any of the residents and that's a harsh reality that might be a reality sooner than later if they cannot work together and find a common solution."

Loss of community, engagement Chatham Park Village was a rental property when it first opened in 1940, bound on the north by 83rd Street, on the south by 84th Street, on the east by Evans Avenue and on the west by St. Lawrence Avenue. When the owner of the building approved integration in 1959, the complex's largely white population began to flee, and the neighborhood experienced the Civil Rights-era phenomenon known as "white flight."

In 1962, the buildings were sold and converted into a housing cooperative, an arrangement where residents share the ownership and management of the complex.

The Chatham Park co-op's motto is "People in Partnership," and based on the recollections of long-time residents, that phrase aptly suited the property in its first few decades. The formerly ivy-covered buildings and lush courtyards were full of people who knew their neighbors and did what they could to support one another, residents said. Maintenance workers were always available and around to make repairs swiftly.

The co-op became the place to be in Chatham. Then-Gov. Pat Quinn once held a bill-signing event on the property, and the co-op's annual garden parties and events attracted aldermen and mayors.

Fast-forward to now. Chatham as a whole has gone through an evolution, from a once-bustling community with vibrant commercial corridors to a neighborhood with fewer jobs and a reduced population. Ald. Hall said the issues facing the Chatham Park co-op are reflective of larger economic issues at play for Black Americans on the South Side of Chicago and nationally after years of disinvestment.

In recent years, tenants said divisive factions have made it difficult for the resident board that manages the site to get anything done. And the most recent board election — on Oct. 28 — had only two members running for the seven-person board. Others were nominated to run for the board at the co-op's election meeting the same day.

Eneal Lee, a resident of the property since 2003 and board member for the past eight years, blamed inexperienced board members for the co-op's recent struggles. He said the co-op needs money to fix up vacant units so they can be reoccupied to bring in more cash. He also said it needs residents who are delinquent on their payments to start paying. Many of the resident-run committees — including the one that focuses on finding new residents to move in — have disbanded, Lee said.

"We have to get these committees back because we can't have someone come in and disband the co-op," Lee said. "We have to really band together, stop fighting each other."

Art Sims, 58, moved to the cooperative in 2017 after he interviewed cooperative members on his former WVON radio show as a part of a series highlighting Black communities around Chicago.

He said the residents talked about revitalizing the property, bringing in new demographics of people and reinvesting in the community. Now, he said, he feels like he's been "duped."

"When I first arrived to the cooperative, I thought that this was getting ready to be a place of hope and moving forward with the future," Sims said. "... And unfortunately, in the time since I have been here, there has been no change, no progress and no improvements."

Sims joined the board last year in the hopes of being able to bring about this change himself. He recommended marketing the property by making a website and shared other ideas for how to bring in revenue. He found his ideas fell on "deaf ears" and discovered that recommendations had been made about how to maintain the property for 20 years, but nothing ever happened. He resigned after about 10 months.

"Being on the board was nothing but chaos, pandemonium, dealing with rude and ignorant comments," Sims said. "... People did not want to work for the greater good of the place."

Residents said each of the 13 courts at the co-op used to have a council that served as a liaison between the board and residents, helping to keep everyone engaged. Now, those groups are defunct.

Lori Dowden, 62, said it has "been a joy" living in Chatham Park. But she is concerned about the potential for the co-op to be turned over to the bank and has seen the co-op struggle to maintain good property managers who know how to handle the finances.

Dowden said there is conflict between residents and the board. This has made her disinclined to be on the board.

And with the property in trouble, she worries she might have to move. Dowden said she is not sure if she could recoup the $5,000 she put down on the property to move in given the financial state of the co-op, and she would face high rent costs.

"I love being here," Dowden said. "I'm not looking to move, so if they can get it together, that'd be great."

Lagging repairs The first alarm bells were sounded about the co-op's finances in the early 2000s.

The treasurer of the co-op cited, in a 2000-01 annual report, dwindling reserves and rising utility costs. The report also said that carrying charges — the monthly payments made by members — had not kept up with the rising costs of operating the co-op and between 50 to 100 residents did not pay those charges on time.

"CPVC's 'money trees' have expeditiously lost their luster, and 'dollars' are rapidly falling from branches as swiftly as lava from active volcanoes," the treasurer wrote.

During the 2023-24 fiscal budget year, the majority of the co-op's residents still paid well under $1,000 a month for their units.

Empty units also pose a financial challenge. The co-op expected to lose $894,717 due to unoccupied units last fiscal year, the same amount lost as the previous year, according to its budget.

Budget documents for 2023-24 state that the vacancies would be addressed by focusing on units that have been "earmarked for extensive repair," but residents say this has not happened.

Wilson, the resident who moved out in April, said his unit needs repairs before someone can move in. He said the ceiling was buckling above his bed, and he was concerned about his safety.

"I would have stayed if they just fixed my place," Wilson said. "But they couldn't do nothing. I fought and fought."

Al Cartman Sr., who served as the co-op's primary electrician for around 20 years, has seen these issues firsthand. He said the COVID-19 pandemic hit the co-op hard because people stopped paying rent, which compounded the property's deferred maintenance challenges.

In 2020, the city fined the co-op a total of $17,000 for issues such as holes and large cracks in the walls and ceiling and defective smoke detectors, according to deed recordings from the Cook County clerk's office.

Cartman said various improvements are needed, including repairs to roofs, ceilings and the heating system.

When Cartman works on the property now — which he says is rare since the co-op has cut back on hiring outside contractors — he is concerned about getting paid.

"It was never like that (in the past)," Cartman said. "They had the money; they were doing a lot of proactive (maintenance) things."

Over the years, Cartman said he has seen the property management company change hands several times as they have butted heads with board members. A FirstService Residential spokesperson said the firm, which manages the cooperative, is unable to comment on "matters controlled by the co-op."

Still, to Cartman, many of the co-op members are like "family," he said. He believes they can work together to come up with a plan for the property.

"I just think that if people can just learn how to communicate and see what is the best way to move on this ... probably do a building at a time, however you (can) to make it inviting to move over there again."

Moving forward Time is of the essence for Chatham Park Village, as the co-op keeps losing more members and, with that, income, current and former residents say. On a recent visit to the property, the Tribune saw a truck moving out a cooperative resident and a hearse collecting another who had died.

Residents said they want the co-op to get back to its era of garden parties and neighborliness and agreed that they have to work together to save their home.

But they each have different ideas about how to move the property forward, and some say they are no longer willing to be engaged in the management of the cooperative due to negative past experiences.

Roy Pierson, 79, said the board is prioritizing increasing members' carrying charges when they should instead be lowering the cost of membership to fill the vacant units. He has lived at the co-op since the 1980s and was board president around 2008. He has refused to be involved since due to a disagreement with the board and members during his presidency, and he did not vote in the recent board election.

Jacqueline Johnson, 59, said the co-op needs a new management company. She moved to the co-op in 2018 and ran for a board seat this year in the hopes of bringing the co-op's "good reputation" back.

Claire Addams-Hoffman, 90, is moving to the East Coast to be closer to family and is done trying to involve herself in the co-op, but says she is keeping her unit as of now.

For Wilson, the road to salvation for the co-op starts with closing the chasms between members like Johnson, Pierson and Addams-Hoffman, getting more members involved and charging residents more to live there. He said that when his mother first moved to the co-op around 1964, her monthly payments were around $70. By the time he left, those costs had increased about $800.

"Is this place salvageable? Yes," Wilson said. "But we got to find some money. And number two, you got to have people to participate."

In the meantime, his unit still sits vacant and his humorous attempt at leaving a lasting mark on the property — a smiley face made out of black and white rocks at the base of a tree in his former front yard — can no longer be discerned after six months away and no one to keep it in order.