Residents of Lakeland Commons in Euclid evacuated their buildings on Tuesday a week after the city condemned the complex at 25450 Euclid Ave.
Since late March, city inspectors have documented a litany of safety issues –holes in ceilings, leaking roofs ad deteriorated balconies that, one report read, “unfit to walk on.”
Great Lakes Realty, the landlord managing those two buildings and its receiver since May 2024, has not complied with those needed repairs, a city representative and a handful of attorneys for the Legal Aid Society said.
It left the city with no choice but to post a letter on everyone’s door last Tuesday ordering them to evacuate by noon on June 30.
“Who can move everything in a week? It’s a horrible situation for the families,” Kristal Grida, an assistant to Euclid Mayor Kirsten Gail, told Scene standing outside of Lakeland’s second mid-rise on Tuesday afternoon.
“The folks that are left here don’t necessarily have options right at their fingertips,” she said. “They’re living in properties that have had deferred maintenance for long enough that it’s reached the level of condemnation. So, it’s horrible.”
A city condemning an apartment complex is pretty rare but not totally unusual.
Last March, Euclid worked to condemn and close Parkside Gardens, a block east from Lakeland Commons, due to a series of unresolved fire and building code violations, News 5 reported at the time.
Its rarity and urgency prompted Elizabeth Zak, a Legal Aid attorney, to get involved. Last Thursday, Zak hosted a Zoom for about 25 tenants, mostly to remind them that their landlord is legally required to provide and pay for temporary housing while they bring their building up to code.
“We want to make sure the landlord follows through with these repairs now,” Zak told Scene. “And we wanted to make sure no one went homeless, which I believe is not going to be the case.”
At least for now.
An attorney for Great Lakes Realty appealed the city’s condemnation this week, court filings show, which could further stretch out actual repairs to the buildings’ roofs and balconies.
But balconies seemed the least of tenants’ worries on Tuesday, as many lugged guitars or shopping carts of clothes on hangers to their cars or U-Hauls in 95-degree heat. Some had already rented hotel rooms down the street, or were staying on friends’ couches, as the battle in court played out.
Donald McClendon, 68, who’s lived at Lakeland for the past 14 years, was talking with Zak on Tuesday afternoon about his own options.
“See, this is crazy, you know what I’m saying?” McClendon said. “You got to go back and forth with your groceries, with your laundry back and forth.”
“It’s a pain,” he said, “not only in the ass, but everywhere else.”
Theo Thornton and his girlfriend Tanisha Pickens, both Amazon workers at the facility on Babbitt, were loading their U-Haul. Thornton had only been living in his one-bedroom for six months when the notice to vacate appeared on his door.
And it wasn’t a particularly great six months. Roaches had appeared. As had mildew in his closet. And a leaking bathtub stayed cracked, Thornton said, despite filing a work order sent to Great Lakes Realty to fix it.
All that, and Thornton was allowed to return to his apartment on Tuesday despite being told the week before he had to leave it.
“I had to take two days off work for this,” Thornton said, leaning against his U-Haul. “And pay hundreds of dollars to rent this thing. Am I gonna see that money? I don’t know.”
“It’s inhumane,” Perkins said, sitting next to him. “That’s what that is.”
A call to Great Lakes Realty was left unreturned as of Tuesday evening.
It’s unclear exactly how many residents were living in Lakeland and had to evacuate on Tuesday, but Zak estimates “about 90” were out by noon.
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