Four housing choice voucher holders and nonprofit HOPE Fair Housing Center filed a class-action lawsuit against Mac Properties on Tuesday, following years of complaints against the property management company that controls a wide swath of the apartments in Hyde Park.
The complaint, filed in federal court, alleges Mac Properties systemically discriminates against voucher holders looking to rent in Mac’s newer, high-rise apartments in Hyde Park, steering them toward outdated buildings that often lack the amenities of their desired properties.
In some instances described in the suit, plaintiffs said they were denied apartment applications or tours of certain Mac buildings once leasing agents learned of their housing voucher. Other voucher holders said agents falsely told them that their desired property did not have any available units, only for non-voucher holders to inquire about the same units with success.
Lawyers representing voucher holders and HOPE said the class could grow to be “quite large” because of the size of Mac’s portfolio. The suit estimates Mac owns about 100 apartment buildings in or surrounding Hyde Park, totaling to more than 5,000 units. Mac also owns and manages buildings in Kansas City and St. Louis.
A draft of the complaint, which was provided to the Sun-Times, estimates the class could include more than 40 voucher holders who experienced income discrimination by Mac starting on or after Dec. 17, 2021.
“Mac has effectively controlled most of the Hyde Park rental market, and that makes them a big player in the Chicago South Side rental market,” said Tory Tilton, a lawyer with Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd. who represents the class. “We’re troubled to hear about the repeated complaints from voucher holders and tenants.”
The Sun-Times has reached out to Mac Properties for comment about the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. This is a developing story that will be updated.
‘I knew it was wrong’
HOPE, a nonprofit whose mission is to create housing opportunities for all through education, is a plaintiff in the suit alongside the voucher holders.
HOPE’s executive director, Michael Chavarria, has worked in housing advocacy for about 11 years. Mac has been on his radar for almost his entire career, he said.
Repeated complaints about Mac spurred an investigation from HOPE, which verified the experiences of voucher holders, according to Chavarria.
Plaintiffs Sheliah Ayanwale, Cadeidga Coleman, Janishia Fleming and RySheena Moore are all Black women with housing vouchers who were looking for apartments in Hyde Park.
Ayanwale, a Chicago native who lives in Texas with her daughter, wanted to move back to Chicago to be closer to family. Mac Properties’ 5252 Apartments, a building at South Cornell Avenue and East 53rd Street, had amenities she was looking for, like a gym, and was close to her cousin, she said.
Ayanwale said she reached out to Mac “almost a million times” after taking a video tour of the building — and multiple leasing agents evaded her requests for an application. One leasing agent discouraged her from applying with a voucher, according to the complaint.
“It felt like I was calling, and [as] soon as I mentioned my voucher, I would get hung up on. I would get convinced that I couldn’t rent there without them asking the important questions, like, ‘What’s your voucher amount?’” Ayanwale said. “I just was persistent in calling, because … I thought these were call center reps who were having a bad day — they weren’t directly with Mac or something — until I started to use tactics like having my cousin call and see if she’d get a different reaction. And then I knew it was wrong.”
After a leasing agent with Mac claimed no units at 5252 Apartments were available, Ayanwale asked her cousin to call and ask about studio apartments. A leasing agent confirmed units in Ayanwale’s price range were available, according to the complaint.
“Mac Properties had lied to Ms. Ayanwale again,” the complaint says.
RySheena Moore, a U.S. Army veteran, is among the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against Mac Properties for how it treats housing voucher holders.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Moore, a U.S. Army veteran, had a similar experience with Mac Properties.
She contacted the property manager in February 2023 about renting an apartment in Kenwood’s Regents Park Apartments at East Hyde Park Boulevard and South East End Avenue and mentioned her voucher. She was excited about being close to the lake, the nearby schools and having a pool for exercise to help manage her PTSD.
A leasing agent agreed to show Moore an apartment there on Feb. 17, 2023, but never told her a time, according to the complaint. He responded days later and told Moore there were no apartments available in her price range.
The agent also sent Moore a separate email suggesting she tour apartments in different areas of the neighborhood. The apartments didn’t have the amenities Moore was looking for and were further from the lake.
Moore visited Regents Park and Mac Properties’ leasing office in-person after her initial frustrations, she said, and she also was denied tours and the ability to rent at Regents Park.
“When I encountered that, I was thoroughly shocked and appalled,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe they’re doing this. And if they’re doing that to me, they’re doing that to other people.’”
Mac investigation ‘very disturbing to us,’ nonprofit says
HOPE started investigating Mac Properties in 2023 after complaints like Ayanwale’s and Moore’s piled up.
HOPE’s focus is on educating and preventing housing discrimination from happening, Chavarria said, and it investigates claims of discrimination.
Hope’s main methodology was fair housing testing, in which trained testers pose as applicants and inquire about properties.
Several testers sent by HOPE contacted Mac Properties about available apartments — some mentioning using a voucher and others not.
The housing choice voucher program is a federal program funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that helps low-income, elderly and people with disabilities afford quality housing. Families with vouchers find their own housing, and local housing authorities manage the program and funds. In Chicago, the Chicago Housing Authority manages the program.
Families with vouchers contribute about 30% of their income toward rent and utilities. In Chicago, CHA pays the remainder of the rent.
The testers who mentioned vouchers were given “different information” and treated worse than nearly identical testers with the same budget who did not mention vouchers, according to the complaint.
The investigation verified what HOPE was hearing from voucher holders, Chavarria said.
“It took a theory rooted in individual experiences and gut instincts, and through our rigorous testing and investigation, we were able to demonstrate that this is a repeatable, demonstrable practice — that there is clearly some sort of directive that was passed down from higher up to the leasing agent staff to erect barriers and prevent voucher holders from having access to the recently renovated or amenity-rich buildings that our testers were inquiring about,” Chavarria said.
“That is an important piece to us when we’re investigating this: Is it just a bad apple? Is it a leasing agent, and they need to be corrected through some outreach and advocacy, some education that we offer? In this case, no matter who you call, you run into the same sort of practice of erecting barrier after barrier.”
Seeking change in Hyde Park
The plaintiffs are being represented by Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym.
The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee has seen an escalation of calls and complaints regarding Mac Properties in the last three years, according to MacKenzie Speer, program counsel at the committee.
Speer said the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee and partners like HOPE prioritize those claims because of the economic and racial impacts, in addition to Mac’s history of complaints.
About 89% of voucher holders in Chicago are Black, according to data from CHA cited in the complaint. Black renters are 46 times more likely than white renters to be affected by Mac Properties’ alleged discrimination against voucher holders, according to the complaint.
Speer said Mac is also a priority because its apartments are concentrated in Hyde Park — one of the Chicago Housing Authority’s “mobility areas.”
Mobility areas are those with below-average poverty rates and crime levels, according to CHA. Families in mobility areas can get more assistance with rent, in addition to personal counseling that helps families find housing that best suits their needs.
Hyde Park is a desirable neighborhood for many Black voucher holders because they can live in a diverse neighborhood with a significant Black population that also has the resources a mobility area provides, Speer said.
Chicago has had protection against income discrimination in place since 1990. As of 2023, the Illinois Human Rights Act also protects against income discrimination.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the Illinois Human Rights Act on counts of income and racial discrimination, in addition to the federal Fair Housing Act and Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.
Speer said most of the complaints against Mac Properties are from people who are so frustrated with the company that they no longer move in — they just want Mac Properties’ practices to stop. HOPE also is seeking compensation for its investigation.
Moore said she would still like to move to the Hyde Park area. But knowing how many of the properties Mac owns there, the thought of moving fills her with anxiety.
“I hope that voucher holders are treated just like any other market-rate renter,” Moore said. “That’s my biggest thing: there should be no discrimination based on source of income. Regardless of your income, you should be able to rent at that place if you qualify.”