Hotaling
CHICAGO - The Chicago Housing Authority will pay a six-figure settlement to a woman who complained it never provided her and her disabled daughter with decent access to her second-floor apartment.
A $525,000 settlement was approved June 13 by federal magistrate judge Keri Holleb Hotaling, resolving claims made in a lawsuit filed against CHA two years ago on behalf of a woman and her late daughter.
According to Lynya Cooper's complaint, she lived in a second-floor unit of a Chicago Housing Authority public housing building in Chicago with her daughter Trebora Talbert, who suffered from a neurological disease and died on Sept. 3, 2022.
She claims that her daughter's medical condition prevented her from being able to walk and required numerous pieces of medical equipment, including a wheelchair that would not fit through the door of their unit.
She further claims they could not use the stairs to the apartment and had to use a private ambulance company just to get her daughter to and from her medical and therapy appointments.
Cooper alleges that despite notifying the Chicago Housing Authority about needing special accommodations for her daughter, it did not provide her with adequate housing with enough room for her daughter to move around in her wheelchair or enough room for her medical equipment.
Not much occurred on the docket in the years that followed the complaint. CHA never filed a responsive pleading but reached a settlement in January.
Court records show that CHA did find a suitable unit on West Elm St. in July 2021 but pulled that offer because Cooper's income exceeded the limit for a two-person household there.
It was a 788-day period that Cooper and Talbert allegedly had to live in an unreasonable situation. The first request for an accommodation came in July 2020.
Cooper was represented by Marko Duric of Robertson Duric.
