'Living out of suitcases': FirstKey renters in Country Club Hills get no explanation for eviction notice
COUNTRY CLUB HILLS, Ill. (CBS) -- Dozens of renters in south suburban Country Club Hills are being kicked to the curb, they say, with no explanation.
The company that owns the homes is blaming the city, but now the mayor of Country Club Hills is clapping back. CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey has more on the controversy.
"We're living out of suitcases. It's hard to get boxes because boxes are expensive. Somebody donated these boxes."
After eight years of happily renting her Country Club Hills home, Ebony Balfour got a surprise: an incredibly generic email with the greeting "Dear Valued Resident."
Days before Christmas, it said her lease with FirstKey Homes would not be renewed and she needed to get out, with no explanation why.
"Somebody could have been answering our calls and giving us assistance. We were kind of just left dangling with nothing, a lot of us, nothing," lamented FirstKey Homes customer Ebony Balfour.
It happened as her young son, who suffers from sickle cell anemia, was having a medical emergency. Mena Smith, a mother of seven, also got the email and she also has health challenges that make an immediate relocation impossible.
"I have primary progressive multiple sclerosis," said Smith. "You have to think about others when you're making these decisions because you never know what's going on in someone's life."
What made the problem worse, when they tried to reapply for other homes in the FirstKey network, they were flat out rejected because their rental scores were too low.
"We're stuck right now," Smith said.
CBS 2 asked FirstKey for an explanation. In a statement, the company blamed the city, saying in part:
"When Country Club Hills stopped issuing or renewing licenses for rental homes in its municipality, we could have better explained that decision was the reason for the non-renewal notice in our resident communications and follow-up discussions."
So, naturally CBS 2 reached out to James W. Ford, the Mayor of Country Club Hills.
"It's an untruth," Ford said. "I think they have certain tenants that they want to get out and they're using us to help that with that.
He said that while the rental home license renewal process was impacted by COVID-19, it has resumed. Why is FirstKey saying Country Club Hills stopped them from renewing it?
"I wish I could answer that question," Ford said. "And if FirstKey were here, I would ask them that question. Because that did not come from us that does not come from me it did not come from the city attorney."
CBS 2 went back to FirstKey and asked for the company to provide some kind of documentation that the city is not allowing these rental renewals. So far we haven't gotten that.
FirstKey did say they would be crediting or refunding any applications for the Country Club Hills residents who applied for another one of their other homes and helping them find a place. But these residents, and others, said it might be too late.
"We're fearful residents that need to get our voices heard. Because we don't want to be on the street or homeless especially in Chicago nowadays," Balfour said.
Late Monday afternoon, FirstKey sent CBS 2 a document that it used to make the decision to sell. It's a 2020 posting from the height of the pandemic -- stating that 'country club hills' had paused the rental registration for *new* homes, not existing ones.
This large corporation also never reached out to Country Club Hills to see if they could stay. The city of Country Club Hills said it has 785 rental homes and about 45 companies own the majority of them.
It said FirstKey is the only company blaming the city for the decision to displace residents.