West Side seniors seek more help from city as flooding causes more headaches

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Seniors living on the West Side of Chicago are demanding answers for the constant flooding problems in the area.

Advocates say the flooding has caused significant distress and traumatic damage.

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Grassroots organization Light Up Lawndale said some of the infrastructure systems are decades old, and the excessive rain recently is only exacerbating the amount of flooding seniors living here have seen, with very little resources to help.

Those like Sharmora Geiger said her 70-year-old mother, Mary, lives in a house on the West Side. And the house was passed down by her grandmother.

"When I came down here, it was a complete disaster," Geiger said. "It was debris, feces, filthy water, mixed in amongst our stuff sitting in water."

It has flooded several times, including just the other day with excessive rain.

Geiger said when their basement first flooded in 2023, the water was ankle-high.

She said they received a small amount of funding from FEMA two years ago, but that barely covered the demolition. She said while the city's infrastructure needs to be completely replaced, they also need to lend a hand.

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"Just some type of resources. Honestly, I feel like we've kind of been left to dry a little bit," Geiger said.

The West Side family is among dozens of other Chicago residents demanding action amid flooding in their Austin community.

"My basement still stinks. I have mold in my basement and I cannot use it. I'm still waiting on the city to give me some help," said West Side resident Alberta Braden.

Many say they haven't recovered from the flooding in 2023.

"It's happening again, and they are being traumatized again," said Princess Shaw with Light Up Lawndale.

Shaw says she wants the city to use most of the $426 million in the federal disaster recovery funding allocated by HUD's Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery program to address the unmet needs of low- and moderate-income residents like Dorothy Rosenthal, and not just general repairs.

"The money should be put aside for us to help us to make us whole. That is what FEMA is supposed to do. That is what we worked our entire lives for. That is what we pay our taxes for," Rosenthal said.

The seniors there say they are on fixed incomes and have no choice but to stay in their home, although, they are getting sick.

"Now, it's coming up through the closet on the first and second floors. I've been in the hospital, because it got in my chest so bad. I was in the hospital a week," said West Side resident Larry Quinn.

Some have tried to make costly repairs and are now facing the prospect of losing generational homes because they cannot make the mortgage. Debra Grant does not know what to do.

"After we finish cleaning up from one flood, then there's another flood," Grant said.

Light Up Lawndale also wants the new technology of checkpoints installed to control the potential for flooding.