At Least Antoine Walker Is a Penitent Slumlord

Writing about Antoine Walker is becoming an increasingly sad endeavor. Each time something comes out about the former NBA star and his host of money and/or legal problems, one thinks “It can’t get worse.“ Then it does.

Sunday, the Chicago Tribune reported a lengthy story about Walker’s Windy City apartment complexes and their many problems. The details are vivid pictures of slum life:

⇥On Cornell Avenue, a 13-unit building developed a mold problem so bad that a 7-month-old boy repeatedly woke up coughing, a tenant lawsuit says. The toxic fumes and a lack of heat drove all the tenants to abandon the building, which the city declared “a hulking public nuisance” before Walker Ventures eventually lost it in a bank foreclosure.⇥⇥On Minerva Avenue, another Walker Ventures building suffers from spotty electricity and a mouse and roach infestation that resulted in its failing several inspections tied to federal rent subsidies, government records show. Shoddy conditions and a problem with squatters drove most tenants away, and this month a team of city inspectors and police found several code violations, city officials said.⇥

⇥⇥In Country Club Hills, raw sewage leaked from bad pipes inside a condominium owned by Walker’s AW Realty and managed by his mother, Diane Walker, according to a Cook County lawsuit that described how the leak destroyed the unit below.⇥

Walker, for his part, realizes that there have been mistakes made, and seems to grasp that it’s ultimately on him. “I wanted to be part of restoring the neighborhood. I’ve always been passionate about the South Side. I was misguided into trusting other people and put my money and faith into other people’s abilities,” he said. “I would like to humbly apologize to everyone who has been affected by the failings of my company. It was never intended to present (tenants with) unacceptable living conditions.”

But one hopes that reviewing an off-the-court career that has had as many missteps as his playing days had bright spots might teach Walker that he might be better off handling his own business and not trying to help others. Mistakes are less messy that way.

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