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Aurora Residents Are Homeless After Being Put Out Of Temporary Housing

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Moved to tears.

That's because dozens of families are now homeless. Their apartments are unsafe.

CBS 2 has been reporting on their story for more than a week and on Monday, as CBS 2's Jim Williams reports, they were forced out of temporary housing.

The tenants had to leave their hotel. It was only a temporary home. The landlord gave each a $1,000 but the tenants wonder where they will live next.

Clint Cluchey's car might be his only shelter for now. It has been an ordeal for Cluchey, his wife and dozens of others in Aurora.

It began at an apartment building, an old YMCA-turned-rental-property in Aurora. It had multiple building code violations and a flood which damaged electrical gear causing a fire.

The city said it was unsafe.

Catuta Lathon, who has a minimum wage job, lived there with her two little girls.

"They never told us it was unrealistic for us to go back home. They made it seem like everything was going to be OK," said Lathon.

Instead, the landlord moved the tenants to a hotel. But it was only temporary. Two weeks.

On Monday, they had to leave.

"I'm going to have to go from house-to-house, friends," said Lathon. "I'm going to figure it out when I was going perfectly fine in my little apartment and providing that stability."

Inside the hotel lobby, the landlord handed out $1,000 checks to the tenants.

It offered little comfort.

"A thousand dollars doesn't do me no good," Cluchey said. "A thousand dollars doesn't put me in a new apartment. It's not enough."

The landlord would only talk to CBS 2 off-camera insisted that he did everything possible to salvage the apartment building.

But Christina Collins, a union steward offering her support to the tenants, said the landlord should have given the residents a warning, well in advance, that the building was in trouble.

"These people are treated like they're not humans. And this is not the way it's supposed to be," Collins said.

"The union steward said she will ask the Illinois Attorney General's Office to investigate. CBS 2 reached out to the mayor's office in Aurora to see if the city can do anything to help the tenants.

No reply.

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