Mail Delays Cause Problems For Edgewater, Rogers Park Residents; 'They're Waiting For Paychecks. They're Waiting For Bills'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Some residents in Edgewater and Rogers Park are dealing with serious mail delays and other issues.
Some haven't received mail in weeks. As CBS 2's Tim McNicholas reported Friday, it's gotten so bad, the problem has caught the attention of a local congresswoman.
What do these frustrated residents in one Chicago area have in common? They all live in the 60660 zip code. And they're all fed up.
"Please help us. We would love to get our mail," said Natalie Abbott.
"We'd like to get our mail." added Jamie Nelson. There's also Ed Socorro, who hasn't gotten mail in almost a month.
"I got mail about two weeks ago," Socorro said. "It was exciting. It was a stack of mail and it was for the wrong house. My same address one block over."
Thirteen-year-old Esther Abbott is waiting on a letter from her pen pal.
"She's been texting me and asking me 'hey did you get your letter yet?' And I'll be like 'no it never came,'" Abbott said.
And Jamie Nelson, whose husband recently got his medication late.
"The medication he was waiting on was anti-anxiety medication, which is kind of ironic considering he was freaking out what he was going do, and how he was going get his medication because he was almost out," Nelson said.
"I'm experiencing it also."
Alderman Andre Vasquez (40th) also lives in the area. He said he's hearing complaints about the mail service every day.
"They're waiting for potential paychecks. They're waiting for just bills, that if you miss a bill, next thing you know, you're getting your service suspended," Vasquez said.
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) tweeted this week that she's also getting complaints about "serious mail problems..." not just in Edgewater, but also Rogers Park and West Rogers Park. And she's trying to get USPS to fix the issues ASAP.
My office has heard from a lot of constituents about serious mail delivery problems in Rogers Park, Edgewater, and West Rogers Park. My staff and I are working hard to get the post office to fix this ASAP.
— Jan Schakowsky (@janschakowsky) November 26, 2020
Vasquez said he's in touch with her office too.
"At the local level, we wan to ensure that our local post office is doing OK," he said. "We also got to be concerned about COVID," Vasquez said. Maybe people are having staff issues because COVID is having increasing rates."
Pauline Scott and other residents said they've even gotten notifications that their packages have been delivered via USPS, but the package was not actually at their home.
"My husband's license plates and city stickers have not arrived. My new insurance cards have not arrived," Scott said.
The U.S. Postal Service sent CBS 2 a statement saying it is using all available resources trying to match the workload caused by the pandemic. The USPS encourage anyone with questions or concerns to reach out to the agency.
Scott already tried that. She got an email reply saying "due to the COVID-19 virus, employee's availability has impacted some delivery operations."
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