Woodlawn community rallies to disrupt eviction of longtime resident

CHICAGO – Members of the community are rallying around a third-generation family facing eviction from a home in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

More than a dozen people showed up to the 6100 block of South Greenwood Avenue Friday in support of a woman who claims she was wrongfully evicted following a multi-year saga and battle with the bank, developers who purchased the property, and the city.

For hours Friday, officers with the Chicago Police Department were in front of the home where Christiana Powell lives along with three tenants, mostly family members, after deputies with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office allegedly showed in the morning to evict them.

Powell told WGN News it was after the death of her mother, who was responsible for the mortgage, when monthly payments on the three-family home reportedly jumped from $800 to $3,500 a month.

Powell claims wrongful foreclosure and said her mortgage was converted from a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan to a conventional loan, not backed by the federal government.

“I am not going away. I am going to fight because all of it’s illegal,” Powell said.

County records show a loan modification agreement, with a signature from Powell and her mother, was filed in late 2013. Powell told WGN-TV that she did not have knowledge and did not sign off on an agreement, despite what court filings indicated.

In November 2015, the U.S. Bank National Association filed a mortgage foreclosure action against Powell, records show. Two years later, an administrative law judge for the city signed off on a judgment against Powell, which showed she owed $5,156.99 in debt to the city.

“I paid it up until $2,400 dollars. If I had paid that $3,500 according to real estate law, then I would have been agreeing with them. I put my hands up and said no more,” Powell said.

Powell claimed at the time, her attorney told her there was no signature on the agreement to change the mortgage payment. She told WGN-TV she did not have the inability to pay, but stopped her payments because she was contesting the bill.

“I’ve been fighting for seven years,” said Powell.

A filing from 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois shows Powell demanded a trial in the matter against U.S. Bank.

Powell said she was notified her case was dismissed at the federal level just one day before sheriff’s deputies showed up and forced her to leave, which blindsided her. She believes not only was she wrongly foreclosed on, but that there is a bigger issue at play due to a new presidential center being developed in the area.

“There’s a bigger fight here. The bigger fight here is the property of longtime Black property owners being stolen, literally stolen. Longtime residents being pushed out. This is a land grab,” Powell said.

A sign previously hanging on the fence of the yard was taken down Friday, which read, “Stop displacement of Black Families.”

Deed records show the property was transferred to GA Roslyn LLC in February 2022.

An attorney for the developers, Michael Griffin, said “Numerous judges in the Circuit Court of Cook County and the Northern District of Illinois have heard and rejected each one of the former owner’s claims. She didn’t pay her mortgage, and her lender foreclosed. During and after the foreclosure, she was allegedly collecting rent from the other occupants. What was she doing with this money?”

According to Powell, she was using the money to pay attorney fees, but also noted she now represents herself in legal matters due to multiple factors.

“For the past 30 months, the occupants at 6141 S. Greenwood have refused to leave and did not pay a single penny of rent to my client,” said Griffin. “We are very thankful for the honorable judges in the Circuit Court of Cook County who heard these five separate eviction cases, and we are very thankful for the professionalism and diligence of the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the Chicago Police Department for bringing this injustice to a respectful conclusion today.”

Powell stated the situation has many dynamics.

“GA Roslyn is one of them. They were named in the suit originally. They have known from the beginning that there was problem with the title. There is a lis pendens on the title that I filed. They’ve known from the beginning, but they have tried to force possession for two years,” Powell said.

Employees associated with the new property owners were on site Friday, helping to clear out the multi-family home. Neighbors said they watched as tenant’s belongings were tossed out windows and left on the street as moving trucks rolled in.

Neighbor Bailey Estell said she has lived next door to Powell for a long time and was saddened by the scene unfolding Friday.

“She’s somebody who has neighborhood barbecues in her backyard. She is someone who opens up her home to people. She is a kind person. I don’t know what’s going on with all the technicalities. If you want the building fine, but this is not how you do it,” said Estell.

Powell said her fight is not over yet and expressed her gratitude for the people, including strangers, who have taken the time to show her support.

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