CHICAGO — Almost two months after the militarized raid that roused them from their sleep and made international headlines, those who remain living — or trying to live — at 7500 South Shore Drive gathered Monday morning in the cold outside their deteriorating apartment building in a show of solidarity.

Amid five floors of mostly empty units — some still boarded up from the nighttime immigration raid Sept. 30 — the 36 people who still live there have united to form the 7500 South Shore Tenants Union. The move to unionize comes after a Cook County judge earlier this month appointed a third-party receiver to manage the property and ordered the building to be vacated.

“The building has been shut down,” Infiniti Gant, a housing organizer with Southside Together, said during a news conference while more than 20 residents stood behind her. “So everyone is mandated to get kicked out of the building. What we are hoping for is that while people are preparing to move, they have livable conditions. Right now, these conditions are not livable, and the owners of the building, the property managers — everyone who’s responsible for making sure this building is maintained, would not live like this.”

Gant is among those in recent weeks who have helped residents unionize in the aftermath of a late-night raid that was among the most infamous moments in President Donald Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz — the monthslong assault on Chicago in which federal agents, including representatives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol, have targeted Latino immigrants.

During the raid at 7500 S. Shore Drive agents dressed for combat rappelled from helicopters onto the building’s roof. They broke through windows and stormed inside, where they crashed through doors and placed residents in zip ties and on buses or in the back of box trucks. Many Venezuelan migrants lived in the building and were taken in the raid.

Officials said at the time the operation was meant to target Tren de Aragua gang members. In the nearly two months since, the Department of Homeland Security has provided no evidence to back that allegation and has offered little information about the 37 people who were arrested that night.

The Tribune reported exclusively last month that no public criminal charges have been filed against anyone in connection with the raid.

A federal judge has ordered the release of at least six Venezuelans arrested that night amid allegations that their detainment violated a consent degree limiting warrantless detainments. Those six individuals have little to no criminal history and no apparent ties to any gang. They remain in custody pending the federal government’s appeal.

In the weeks since the raid, residents who spoke Monday said their living conditions have only deteriorated. One, Mashawnda Price, said “ICE was just the tip of the iceberg” and that, as a single mother of a 3-year-old, she has been surviving in her home without basic necessities.

“I’ve had to go weeks without power, gas,” she said. “I’ve had to go weeks without a working shower, tub and sink.”

She spoke of having to fight a “mice infestation,” along with “the roaches and bedbugs infestations.” She said the hallways remain “very dark” because the lights don’t work. And as the temperature has dropped, she said, residents have gone without heat.

“It’s a building that is falling apart from the inside out,” she said.

“And it stinks!” someone behind her yelled.

“Yes, it has a bad smell,” Price said. “Each floor.”

In court documents filed Monday, the building’s ownership said it tried to improve living conditions following the raid, but the efforts were thwarted by criminal activity and safety issues on the site. Police recently arrested two people who broke into the building, removed copper piping and caused a water leak, records show.

Attorneys for the building’s owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It is unclear when residents will be forced to leave. After a prolonged legal dispute between lender Wells Fargo and Trinity Flood, the Wisconsin-based owner of the property, a judge earlier this month appointed Friedman Communities to manage the building. The city has proposed a move-out date of Dec. 12, but some residents said they weren’t sure how long they’d have to stay there.

The newly formed union has presented several demands of Friedman Communities and the Chicago Housing Authority. Among those demands: the full restoration of heat, power and working elevators; the removal of standing water, sewage and mold; an agreement to relocate residents in the South Shore neighborhood; and $7,500 of relocation assistance per resident.

Darren Hightower, who has lived in the building for two years, said “nothing has really happened” since the judge appointed Friedman Communities to run the property. He and others said they’ve not heard from the company. They continue to wait for change with little hope that change will arrive.

“Everything that we see or we’ve heard, it’s been happening over the past year, even before the ICE raid and everything,” Hightower said, detailing the lack of hallway lights and the broken elevator and trash in the stairwells and halls. “This has been a problem for over a year. It’s not just happening in the last month.

“Even with the heat situation, we had an incident last year that most people were out of heat for up to 40 days. … And this was not a Peoples Gas problem. This was a management problem.”

Before and after the raid, the building suffered from a lack of security. Squatters filled some units, and unlocked doors allowed anyone to enter. On Monday, the residents gathered just outside the front door, where on either side above it there were “no trespassing” signs.

Meanwhile, visible reminders of the raid remained. Large wooden boards covered some of the windows of apartments left empty by people who were arrested. Their belongings had long disappeared. The formation of a union was, in a lot of ways, a decision to fight back. To reclaim some dignity that’d been lost.

“I’ve been here two years watching this place fall apart,” Hightower said, but after he and his neighbors gathered to tell their story they walked back inside, just beyond the front door, and shared a small moment of celebration. They’d come together, at least. One of the organizers began a chant and a cheer and members of South Shore’s newest tenant union grew louder:

“Who got the power?”

“We’ve got the power!”

“What kind of power?”

“Tenant power!”

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