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State Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, introduced a bill that
would give law enforcement the power to remove trespassers from
properties where the owner is able to establish legal ownership.
The measure has already passed in the Illinois Senate.
“This is about correcting a bad public policy and making clarity
between a squatter and a tenant,” Ford told The Center Square.
“Squatters don't have rights. Tenants have rights. And we have
to clear up our law in Illinois to distinguish between the two
so that the process of getting a squatter out is swift and they
don’t have to be treated like a tenant. Where tenants have
rights and landlords may have disputes with tenants and have to
go to court to get them out, there should be no court that
determines whether the squatters’ out.”
Ford told the story of a family of South Side constituents who
recently faced squatters that moved into their home and refused
to leave after presenting fraudulent mortgage documents showing
them as new owners.
As Chicago police now investigate the matter and with rents
across the state continuing to rise, Ford is hoping to see
Springfield do the heavy lifting.
“I think that if we pass the law and the governor signs it, it's
going to relieve some of that burden,” he said. “I think that
it's unfortunate that the times that we're living in people take
advantage of a system and people steal. This is theft of real
estate. You have sophisticated squatters out here taking
advantage of the law, real homeless people don't do that.”
Even if his bill becomes law, Ford admitted he thinks more will
still need to be done to completely erase the problem.
“I think that there's going to still need to be more discussions
on how to prevent it,” he said. “The number one way to prevent
squatters is for landlords to protect their properties and to
secure them so no one could get in. They need to make sure that
they know if someone is on their property as quickly as possible
so that they get to the police and say that they're trespassers.
That's important because once they get in, they change the
locks, they start getting utilities in their name and then they
become legal tenants.”
Ford said he’s also working with local utility companies to put
a code on each property that would need to be presented to
workers anytime someone seeks to have services turned on in
their name.
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