Residents face weeks of no heat at Karl King Tower
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — For weeks now, residents at the Karl King Riverbend Tower apartment complex have been dealing with a failed heating system.
Portage Township Trustee Jason Critchlow explained the tower has a heating system that includes 12 boilers. Ten of those 12 have failed, leaving two boilers to heat all 200+ housing units, which is comprised mostly of senior and disabled residents. The complex has passed out portable space heaters, but Critchlow said that’s a short-term solution that’s causing immediate dangers.
“…[the] latest message that came in from a resident was she is heating her unit with a combination of space heaters and her oven. Very common practice for people to do, I highly encourage people to not use their ovens to heat their apartments or their housing, but you’re seeing people do that. So, there’s a real fear that on top of everything else, we’re going to see some sort of fire or other hazardous condition… also throwing in, this is the same apartment complex that has had consistent issues with their elevators,” said Critchlow.
He has spoken with the property managers of the tower several times, including Monday, and thinks residents may be in for a long, cold wait to fix the failed boilers.
“They’re thinking they might be able to get parts to repair those, but they won’t know that until later this week. If those parts are not available, then they have to replace the whole system and they don’t have a timeline on when that’s possible, so here we are, again these space heaters are a short-term solution,” explained Critchlow.
The owners of Karl King Tower, Treetop Companies, is a national real estate investment firm with roughly 7 thousand residential units across the states.
“If you’ve been operating at partial capacity and you didn’t know it, well why didn’t you know it? And if these things did all fail at the same time, well why is that? So, it’s one of those things that right out of the gate, doesn’t really pass the sniff test. It’s very clear to me exactly what is going on here and that is a lack of care by the ownership of this building,” said Critchlow.
Critchlow said he is gathering evidence from residents, caregivers, and other agencies involved. He explained nearly all residents asked to stay anonymous out of fear of retaliation.
“I cannot tell you in the last two weeks how many people have called me, sent me a message, or asked for me to call them or meet with them, and almost every single time by the time our conversation is over they say, ‘Jason I’d appreciate if you left my name out of it’, and the reason for that is they fear retaliation by owners of complexes like this,” said Critchlow. “Because you’re someone who has fewer opportunities, you’re much more prone and susceptible to, A, be taken advantage of, or B, be intimidated into silence”.
Critchlow said to reach out to someone if you need help, “Prioritize your own safety. Document, document, document. If you’re someone whose afraid, I always say reach out to me, I’m happy to be the bad guy in these situations, I won’t be intimidated to the best of my ability, I will stick true to my word and I will keep your name out of my mouth, but you have got to say something. If you can find that ‘be brave’ moment, you can call 311, you can call the city, the city will send inspectors out, the city does care, but they don’t know what they don’t know”.
He’s in the process of speaking with the Portage Township legal counsel, prepping to file a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General’s office. After that, he and South Bend officials are looking to address the root of the issue.
“Once we get through this crisis, we’d like to start getting all those folks sitting around the table to start talking about what are the policies that we can develop locally to stop this from happening so that we’re not kind of responding on our heels, but we really need to change the culture when it comes to landlords like this,” shared Critchlow.
For help with similar issues in South Bend, you can call 311 for the City of South Bend's Utility Assistance Program (UAP), dial 211 for general utility, housing, and other aid, or click here to get in contact with the Portage Township Trustee Office.