Her family called police for help, then her lease was terminated

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

When Diamond Jones moved into a ranch-style home in Richton Park, it felt like her first place on her own, even though she was renting the property.

Jones, 30, was excited to provide a bigger space for her daughter while also having enough room for her younger brother, who stayed with her. Later, she gave birth to a second daughter.

But after calling the property home for four years, she was forced to move abruptly after being issued a 10-day notice of lease termination.

That notice cited the village’s crime-free ordinance, but Jones said she was given no clear answers about how she violated the ordinance, which prohibits a tenant from engaging in, facilitating or conspiring in criminal activity.

Jones said she moved to avoid having an eviction order on her record.

This month, more than a year after the ordeal, Jones filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging the constitutionality of that ordinance. Jones, represented by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Winston & Strawn LLP, alleges Richton Park violated her constitutional right to due process and violated her First Amendment rights.

“They let me down,” Jones said about the suburban community.

Anthony Vazquez, Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

A series of events tied to Jones’ lease termination notice started June 24, 2022, when a shooting occurred on her block. Jones was not home, but her mother, who was watching her daughters, went out to help the shooting victim, according to the lawsuit.

The next day, Jones and her family received threats via social media accusing the family of calling police. The family called 911 and reported the threats, according to the lawsuit.

Days later, on June 27, someone opened fire and shot into Jones’ home while her two daughters and mother were home, according to the lawsuit. Jones, who wasn’t home, said no one was injured.

Emails obtained by Jones’ lawyers indicate that on June 29, 2022, Richton Park police officials were evaluating if Jones had violated the crime-free ordinance. An hour after officials exchanged emails, Richton Park police emailed Jones’ landlord to notify them that the property was in violation of the ordinance, according to the lawsuit.

The Village of Richton Park declined to comment. Jones’ landlord is not a defendant in the lawsuit.

Crime-free ordinances are in place in communities across Illinois, including in Chicago, where there is a “chronic illegal activity premises” ordinance.

In 2017, the HOPE Fair Housing Center filed a federal lawsuit challenging Peoria’s chronic nuisance ordinance, which they eventually settled to include due process protections for tenants.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Michael Chavarria, executive director of the housing center, said they would like to see these types of ordinances eliminated. Housing, he said, shouldn’t be used to address crime. The ordinances also disrupt affordable housing, because some municipalities issue fees to landlords if they don’t evict a tenant, he said.

“We don’t force homeowners to leave their community or to become unhoused because they made too much noise or because one of their teenagers got into a fight,” Chavarria said. “We don’t treat so many other people this way. We’re really seeing this targeted at renters, and typically renters who are not white.”

Richton Park, about 18 miles south of Chicago, is home to 12,775 residents, according to census data. About 86% of residents identify as Black, while 6% identify as white.

Crime-free housing ordinances date back to the early 1990s, and some of the first ones were developed in Arizona as a way to reduce crimes in rental properties, according to a guide published by the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Micaela Alvarez, one of the attorneys representing Jones, estimates 179 municipalities across the state have variations of crime-free ordinances.

“We view them as part of a legacy of local laws that really reinforce regional patterns of segregation,” Alvarez said. “They are often enacted in response to perceived or actual changes in demographics in majority-white communities. And regardless of where they are enacted, because they rely on contact with law enforcement as the main trigger of a violation, these ordinances disproportionately impact people of color.”

Jones previously lived in the south suburbs, and she was familiar with Richton Park. Moving there meant she would be closer to relatives who could help her with child care.

The village requires every lease for a rental property to include an addendum outlining how a landlord can terminate the agreement if the tenant, a guest or anyone else living there violates any provision of it, according to the ordinance.

She didn’t think twice about signing the addendum.

“Everything checked out — I’m moving in,” she said. “If you’ve got all great intentions, that’s the last thing that you’ll think about.”

The ordinance outlines how a tenant could be in violation due to an “unreasonably high number of calls” for police services for noise complaints, dog complaints, stray animal, juvenile or other types of complaints. Calls related to domestic violence or sexual violence aren’t supposed to count.

Anthony Vazquez, Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

In an email, police said the person wounded in the June 24, 2022, shooting near Jones’ home was visiting Jones’ home. The email goes on to detail how an estimated seven gunshots were fired at Jones’ home during the June 27, 2022, shooting.

“These incidents have placed the neighborhood in danger and created a high level of fear,” the official wrote in the email.

The family doesn’t believe they were suspects in the shootings, Jones said. They thought they were witnesses who were cooperating with the investigations.

On July 5, 2022, she received a notice of termination indicating she had 10 days to leave the property because she violated the crime-free lease addendum.

“That was heartbreaking,” she said. “I didn’t have anywhere to go within 10 days. At that point, I had two children. It was devastating to know that I still didn’t know why I was being evicted, embarrassed that I have to tell people that I’m being evicted for this particular reason.”

Jones said she went to the village’s offices, but still wasn’t given a clear answer. A village worker gave her a list of 11 emergency calls made from in or around her home since 2019; the calls vary from a wellness check to a misdial to a noise complaint. One of the calls stemmed from when the family reported the online threats, and another call was from the day the shots were fired into the home.

As she scrambled to find a place move to, Jones said she learned she was pregnant with her third child. Keeping busy with moving her children into a smaller apartment in another county meant she couldn’t focus on her pregnancy, she said.

The girls, now ages 6 and 4, still are scared by loud noises and don’t like to be left alone.

Jones said she never understood why people who witness crimes were reluctant to come forward, but she now questions if this would have all been avoided if her family would have kept quiet.

“We’re trying to seek justice,” Jones said about the lawsuit. “I don’t want that to ever happen to anyone. I don’t want anybody to obviously not want to help going forward, afraid of the retaliation.”