A transgender woman who has, for many months, been embroiled in litigation against her landlordwho she alleges tried to evict her because of her gender identity and because her fiance is African-Americanhas settled with the landlord in court on other related lawsuits. But a discrimination complaint against the landlord that the woman filed with the city is still pending, she said.
Michelle Roberts, who is presently still living in Rogers Park in the apartment in question, alleged that her landlord, Zoran Knezev, tried to throw her out when he was unable to keep other tenants in the apartment, whom he was renting out to on a room-by-room basis. Knezev allegedly said that the other tenants were disturbed living near a transgender woman, and referred to her fiance, Sidney Morgan, using a racial epitaph.
Roberts sued Knezev in November, maintaining that she was owed money from the additional rents he was collecting from the other tenants in the unit, and also because he did not provide her with a copy of a summary of the Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance or inform her of the bank in which her security deposit had been placed. Knezev in turn sued to have Roberts evicted.
Roberts and Knezev settled their court case on April 8, with Knezev agreeing to pay Roberts $4,500 and Roberts agreeing to vacate the premises in mid-May.
"We had a victory, but it was a lot less than anticipated," said Roberts, who is now looking for a new place with Morgan.
She has no plans to drop the discrimination complaint against Knezev that she filed with the Chicago Commission on Human Relations in September, and she and Morgan are still considering whether to file another lawsuit, pending the complaint's outcome.
"It might not have been pretty, but we at least won this round," said Morgan.