A local and federal investigation into a suspicious fire on February 23 in a South Shore apartment building has raised questions about property management by a notorious slumlord, CKO Real Estate, known for forcing residents to live in uninhabitable conditions in neglected buildings.
The fire occurred just three days after a city inspector visited the building. It followed several calls made to the Chicago Department of Buildings by an anonymous individual who learned that the apartment units had no heat or water.
6733 S. Paxton, several hundred yards from Jackson Park, is owned by CKO Real Estate. This property management firm, which has experienced financial turmoil and high employee turnover, has received numerous complaints about deteriorating conditions in and around its apartment buildings and other properties.
It’s a story the Chicago Crusader has been reporting since September.
At that time, CKO Real Estate gave illegal 30-day vacate notices to tenants at another building on the same street, with water and heat problems, holes in the ceiling, and mice. The notice came one day after a city inspector, responding to complaints, discovered workers gutting and rehabbing units without a city permit.
For months, tenants have been frustrated by the building’s lack of heat and water as subfreezing temperatures blanketed Chicago.
On Sunday, February 23, a two-alarm fire ripped through a four-story apartment building. A Crusader journalist arrived at the scene as fire trucks, police cars and ambulances jammed the entire city block as the blaze produced thick clouds of smoke that filled the evening sky.
Witnesses say the fire began around 9 p.m. before firefighters arrived at the U-shaped building, which had 30 apartments and a large courtyard in the middle.
The fire raged for about an hour as firefighters struggled to find a working fire hydrant on the block. They located one at the northwest corner of Paxton and 67th Street. By the time water was pumping through hoses, the blaze had reached the roof. It took about 40 minutes before the fire was extinguished.
Firefighters remained on the scene as smoldering rubble threatened to reignite. The fire occurred on the south side wing of the building and affected units in the back.
The Chicago Fire Department had no official on the scene to answer questions from the media.
Two days later, Chicago Fire Department spokesperson Larry Lanford said the department had completed its report. At the same time, the representatives of the Chicago Police Department and the U.S. Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives continued their investigations of the fire.
Lanford said his fire investigators were still working to determine what caused the fire and where it started. The morning after the fire, blackened windows on the second and third floors could be seen from the street.
Lanford said a mattress was on fire in the same area of the building the day before. Three people were reported in the building at the time.
Lanford said the Department’s official report concluded the fire was caused by an incendiary act, meaning the incident was caused by human action. He said incendiary is different from arson because it’s an accidental fire instead of arson, which is intentional.
“Say if I lit a candle and it falls over. That’s incendiary. If the candle is used to set something on fire, that’s arson.
“Obviously, something is going on over there, but from our standpoint, it’s [an] incendiary [act].
The city inspector who had visited the building days earlier was ordered to evacuate it because the city deemed it unsafe. He entered the building and knocked on doors to make sure no one was living there. After seeing a wheelchair outside a unit, police and firefighters were called before they broke into the apartment. No one was inside.
As inspectors prepared to leave, Essence Nelson, 26, a single mother with a four-year-old son, parked her car. The inspector told her the building had to be evacuated. She was told not to return to her apartment because of the lack of water and heat. That’s when she began making plans to move. She and her son were at her friend’s house when her building was on fire. She said some of her belongings were still inside the unit when the fire ignited. Nelson said she lived on the second floor where the fire raged.
“This is so crazy to me,” Nelson told the Crusader. “I needed those things, but I’m glad I wasn’t there at the time.”
Stefan Johnson had many belongings in his third-story apartment when the building was on fire. He was staying with a relative at the time of the fire. His apartment was spared, but some windows were smashed as firefighters forced their way into his and other units during the fire. Johnson said his renter’s insurance allows him to stay in a hotel downtown until he finds another place to live.
The day after the fire, investigators were on the scene along with Jerome Faulkner, the property manager for CKO Real Estate. Some tenants had accused Faulkner of being distrustful and evasive of their questions about the lack of water and heat.
According to the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, landlords are prohibited from not providing residents with water and heat. According to an email Faulkner sent to tenants in January, some tenants have not had heat since November 2024. The email also stated that a boiler “is no longer operable.”
That same email said something familiar to many CKO Real Estate property tenants: “There are a few options available, but each would require that the impacted tenants vacate their respective units for the foreseeable future.”
With little to no transparency in its interactions with tenants, CKO Real Estate has often been accused of trying to force out residents as it seeks to rehab units that can be rented to higher-paying tenants.
During the inspector’s visit to the property on February 20, Johnson, the third-floor tenant, showed the Crusader a string of text messages between himself and property manager Faulkner, who said he was in court all day as Johnson sought his help with his apartment. An hour later, an inspector called Faulkner, who has a Google greeting that requires callers to leave their number so they can be screened.
After the fire, Faulkner finally called the Crusader and said his future with the company is “uncertain.” He also told the Crusader that CKO Real Estate CEO Chikko Patel told him not to respond to “certain” calls. During an interview with the Crusader, Patel denied Faulkner’s claim.
“I have not given those directions,” Patel said.
CKO Real Estate owns five buildings on Paxton, and tenants in all of the buildings have reported problems similar to those reported by the Crusader.
Perhaps the building in the worst shape is located at 6811 S. Paxton. Here, the few remaining tenants have a nasty sewage problem, and the entire ceiling in the hallway is exposed to dangling wires and pipes.
During a visit to one tenant’s apartment, the entire carpet in the bedroom was soaked with water, and the bathtub was flooded with human feces. The toilet was also backed up with human waste. The tenant used her oven to warm the unit because there was no heat.
The Crusader learned about the situation because the tenant loudly mentioned CKO Real Estate’s name while expressing her frustrations during a phone call.