Civil Courts
More than 160,000 civil and family court cases were filed in Cook County in 2022. The court’s civil divisions, which include evictions, foreclosures, personal injury, debt collection, guardianship, divorce, orders of protection, and more, have the second-highest caseload after traffic court.
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In a letter to a social service agency, the Cook County Public Guardian criticized a lack of state intervention in several instances in which older adults with disabilities were being defrauded.
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Illinois’ system for protecting older adults from financial exploitation leaves them more vulnerable to harm and isolation. Victims often end up as wards of the Cook County Public Guardian, whose office takes control of their finances and care in probate court.
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Know your building. Know your landlord.
“The Tenant Trap,” a yearlong Injustice Watch investigation, found Chicago tenants regularly face eviction and informal displacement at buildings with histories of serious safety violations. Meanwhile, the court system prioritizes landlords’ property rights over the rights of residents. We relied on several public databases to learn about building conditions and the identities of their owners.…
Pilsen tenants followed the law in withholding rent. They were forced to move out anyway.
Leer en español By the time three Pilsen tenants began writing letters to their landlord requesting repairs in May 2023, water was dripping from the ceiling of a third-floor hallway even on sunny days. “Right outside my unit, there is water leakage from the fourth floor and damage in floorboards due to oversaturation,” wrote Cristina…
Property-tax foreclosure reform gets put off by Illinois legislators
In their end-of-session dash to pass a state budget, Illinois lawmakers put off consideration of proposed reforms to property tax sales and foreclosures. That leaves Illinois the only remaining state where homeowners can face losing not just their homes but also all of the equity in them they’ve accumulated if their homes are foreclosed on…
Illinois is the last state to unlawfully strip wealth from homeowners caught in tax foreclosure
This is a joint project of Injustice Watch and the Investigative Project on Race and Equity. When Cook County sheriff’s deputies burst into the Maywood home of 74-year-old Velma Lewis with a battering ram, it wasn’t because she had committed a crime or had a warrant issued for her arrest. It was because she fell…
Costs triple, delays mount in vital tech contracts
This investigation was reported in collaboration with the Chicago Tribune. In a flurry of contracts inked a decade ago, some of Illinois’ most powerful political figures declared it was time to fix their obsolete and expensive computer systems. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle called for an online method to deliver error-free property records and…
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