'Hell hole' shouldn't describe housing here

When one thinks of the term boarding house it is usually in the terms of a grandmotherly widow renting out a spare room in her home to a college student or a young single person who works for low wages.

It is with that in mind that the city of Naperville's law regulating boarding houses makes sense. It allows no more than two boarding rooms per dwelling unit for not more than two persons per dwelling unit. In other words, a boarding house can rent two rooms with one person each or one room with no more than two.

At least that's what the law says.

However, when it was passed, existing boarding houses were grandfathered in, with the result that it is legally possible to have a boarding house with more than two rooms for rent.

Such applied to the boarding house at 436 E. Fourth Ave. which, until it was closed down for code violations last summer, provided a home, albeit shabby and overcrowded, to approximately 15 people. The boarding house has been in existence since the 1920s, when it housed workers at the long-gone Kroehler Manufacturing Company.

Though the police had been summoned to the place repeatedly over the last 15 years -- for such incidences as theft, vehicle damage, disorderly conduct, battery and assault -- it was not until a resident allegedly beat his girlfriend inside the house so badly that she ended up in critical condition in Edward Hospital that the city closed the place down for code violations.

Former residents of the boarding house have described it to The Sun as not well kept up, with homeless people breaking in to sleep in the hallway, and fellow tenants who smoked marijuana and crack cocaine, drank with underage kids and partied with prostitutes.

As one said, it was a "dirty little hell hole, but it was cheap, and there was already a bed there."

While the lack of affordable housing is a problem in Naperville, as it is in many of the suburbs, this does not mean people should live in these kinds of conditions. The fellow who owns this building, and others, told The Sun "I'm the low-income housing around here."

Maybe, but in terms of living standards, "dirty little hell hole" just shouldn't be acceptable.

The City Council is looking to amend its housing law to mandate that boarding houses be occupied by the owner so that, presumably, the building is kept up and the boarding rooms are limited to two.

The city is also looking to not grandfather anyone in.

That's a good start.