As someone who lived at Lawson House YMCA from the spring of 1992 until late October of 2010, I feel compelled to put in my two cents.
I absolutely agree with WW's statement about Lawson House residents. We were NOT all drug addicts, prostitutes or mental cases. Some of us, in fact, were hard working people who paid full rent most of the time that we lived there. During my early years there, I worked as a temporary office worker, for clients such as Loyola University Medical Center (in Maywood). From 1996 to 2000, I was the database specialist for the Child Welfare division of YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago. The Access database I managed had roughly 950 foster children in it, making that agency second only to Catholic Charities. Eventually, YMCA Child Welfare disbanded due to changes made by DCFS. Like all the case managers working for that agency, I lost my job. But I hardly think that they'd have paid me a full-time salary for four years if I'd been a drug addict or prostitute or mental case. I later had other Chicago jobs, including working as a legal assistant, an attendant at the Screenz Computing Center (an Internet cafe on Clark Street), and a US census worker in the summer of 2010 (which requires that one submit fingerprints and pass a background check).
Originally, I stayed at Lawson House because the rent was low, and I liked the River North neighborhood.
Unfortunately, the rumors of serious bed bug problems there are NOT exaggerations. Those problems started around 2002 or 2003, I'd say, as a result of the fact that they unwisely accepted donations of infested beds from local hotels. One afternoon, I actually stood on the corner of Chicago Avenue and Dearborn and watched, pretty appalled by what I was seeing, as they unloaded an entire truckload of filthy mattresses which had no business near the property, let alone in the rooms of the residents.
FYI, having bed bugs doesn't necessarily mean that one is personally unclean. They can travel from room to room, through the walls.
I showered nearly every day, and did my best to keep my room as clean as possible. (I can't say the same of all of the folks who lived near me on the 12th floor, unfortunately.) One cannot personally buy the heavy-duty insecticides it takes to combat bed bugs, not at a hardware store. As I recall, Lawson House usually used Anderson Pest Control Solutions. For a while after their visit, it sometimes seemed to help a little bit, but usually, not for very long.
A frequent topic of conversation in the residents' lounge was what we were trying to do to combat the bedbug problem. They could be vicious little creatures, and I can recall often waking up late at night with bites which were so painful that I called my mother and pleaded with her to let me move back to her house so I could get away from the problem. Of course, she didn't want me to bring the bugs with me and infest her own home as well.
In hindsight, in spite of what some experts will tell you, that probably wouldn't have happened. I was evicted last fall because I'd fallen behind on the rent. So I moved into the home of a Facebook friend living in Bellingham, WA. I haven't seen a single bed bug, or been awakened by any bed bug bite, ever since then. (Thank God!)
My advice to any current Lawson House resident is to get out of the place as soon as it becomes feasible to do so. Current management there does NOT care one bit about the health or safety of the residents. They are not open to reasonable suggestions about how folks who've temporarily fallen behind on their rent can get caught up on that rent by doing meaningful work for Lawson House. They'd prefer to run to their suburban lawyer rather than do whatever they can do to avoid needless litigation. In fact, when I left last fall, I had managed to raise $2,000 (thanks to a donation from another Facebook friend, believe it or not), and I was prepared to give them that amount in payment towards my debt. But they would settle for nothing less than my complete payment of the legal fees as well. That ought to tell you a lot about the idiots currently managing the place. The end result was that I paid nothing, because I knew that I'd need that money for living and moving expenses, if they insisted on pushing for the eviction anyway.
By the way, I had to discard numerous personal possessions because I couldn't afford to pay to move them to Washington State.
For any reader still living there, I especially advise staying away from Gloria Johnson. Words cannot adequately describe how much I loathe that woman, who has probably never cracked a friendly smile in her entire life. In light of her financially unwise decision to push for my eviction despite my willingness to pay MORE than the full amount of the money I owed to them (not counting the complete amount of the legal fees, of which they'd have received a portion), I think she should be fired.
And that's my two cents. read more
