Former Latitude Five25 residents were able to pick up $10,000 settlement checks on Monday after being evacuated from the east Columbus apartments on Christmas Day 2022.
The checks come from a $1.5 million settlement for the tenants.
Linda Prysock described abruptly leaving her home after cold weather caused pipes to burst that day. From her balcony on the 11th floor, she saw COTA buses coming to get residents. “I said, ‘oh my God, this is real,” Prysock said.
She had to leave her cats and a decades-old plant her mother had given her as she made her way down the one working elevator and navigated the icy landscape.
“I went down to the lobby, and it was ice and water, everything, everywhere. And coming out the ceiling, water, ice went out,” Prysock said.
She thought she would be able to return within a few hours or a few days, but that wasn’t the case. Eventually an attorney from Legal Aid helped get the Humane Society into Prysock’s apartment to rescue the cats.
Her plant stayed in the apartment until September 2023. When the same Legal Aid attorney got into the apartment again, it appeared to be dead, but he returned it to her nonetheless, Prysock said.
On Monday, when Prysock came to pick up her settlement check, she had regrown the plant and gave part of it to the attorney who had helped her. “He's going to put in his office. So, all is well you know, it's okay,” Prysock said.
She plans to use her check to pay off credit card debt she racked up while living in a hotel and from moving into a new home. “I'm going to pay them back, and that makes me feel better because I wasn't expecting anything," Prysock said.
Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio distributed about 135 checks on Monday.
Melissa Benson, senior managing attorney of the housing team, said a total of 149 checks will be given to displaced residents of Latitude Five25 who submitted settlement claims by March 4.
Benson said that represents the majority of families who were living in the apartments. “I've been a legal aid attorney for almost 20 years, and I've never done anything like this before. I've never been able to give away that much money to people,” Benson said.
Even before the Christmas 2022 freeze, Latitude Five25 was plagued with problems. Residents reported rodent infestations and a slew of other issues.
Prysock said the elevators rarely worked, the hot water was inconsistent and sometimes the toilets didn’t flush.
Following the evacuation of residents, a Franklin County judge ordered the owners of the complex, Paxe Latitude, to pay $4.3 million and give up the property in February 2023.
In August, a federal bankruptcy court in New Jersey greenlit a receivership group to take over the apartment complex and allowed the city to pursue the full fine that Paxe Latitude still had not paid.
The 15-story towers, originally built in the 1960s, are now up for sale.
