Residents of an apartment building at 7263 S. Coles Ave., along with their advocates from the Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO), rallied outside JP Morgan Chase’s downtown headquarters on July 15 to demand that the bank maintain their homes.

The tenants claimed that Chase, which received $25 billion in federal funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) last year, let their foreclosed building “waste away.” Many of the families said they feared becoming homeless.

For the past two years, they claimed that Chase, who has been responsible for maintaining the property since 2008, hadn’t honored its responsibility, resulting in deterioration of the building to such a degree that the City stepped in and ordered residents to vacate the property.

Crystal Richards, a tenant of the building who has six children ages 14 to several months old, told Residents’ Journal after the rally that she was worried about finding a place to live with her family.

“We’re being evicted Saturday. And as of right now, I don’t have anywhere to go,” she said. Richards said that she had been paying her rent faithfully to the manager of the building, and added that she was rallying with the others at the bank headquarters to get some remedy for her plight.

Richards said she wanted Chase “to get me some funds and place me and my children in a home or apartment somewhere,” she said.

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Residents’ Journal’s coverage of low-income tenants and their advocates, rally at Chase Towers in downtown Chicago on July 15, seeking financial support from the bank for their upcoming eviction, due to the foreclosure of their buildings.