City Orders Tenants Out of South Side Building

Building where 2-year-old fell from window deemed uninhabitable by city officials

Several families living in about a dozen units of a south side building were ordered to find a new place to live Wednesday after city officials deemed the building uninhabitable.

The action comes a day after a 2-year-old boy fell out of a window of the building, on the 6100 block of South Artesian Avenue, after being left home alone by his parents.

City officials said they'd tried for the last two years to get the building's owners to bring the property up to code and are looking into whether it had been foreclosed upon or abandoned.

"The Department of Buildings has responded to a number of 311 complaints about this building, including three in 2012," a city spokeswoman said.

A former resident's personal complaints were enough for him to leave after living in the building for 14 years.

"I left a couple months ago because of the water went off," said Clifton Martin. "You know, before that, it was the lights and the gas."

Through tears, another resident said she'd been living for the last three months without cooking gas or hot water.

"There is, like, there's no one out here that's trying to help us," said Kristiana Toney, who was among those ordered to vacate.

The building is now boarded up and city officials said they're trying to find the owner.

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