Zacki Muhammad had donned a suit an...

Zacki Muhammad had donned a suit and tie for our meeting and shakeed out a leather valise.

yet before we got down to business, he agreed to permit me take a quick examine inside his home -- a cubicle at the strange Ritz Hotel, 1007 S. State.

There's just enough place for a bed and rack of clothes, if it were not that somehow he'd also shoehorned in an of advanced age box fan stacked on top an aged portable television stacked on top an antiquated microwave oven.

A interstice netting covers the top of the cubicle, affording Muhammad a semblance of protection from his comrade guests and a clear path for the sprinkler arrangement hanging from the original century-plus ceiling above.

If this is the of the present day Ritz, you'd hate to diocese the old one.

to this time for the 110 men who live here -- renting steads at $15 a night or $210 a month -- the modern Ritz has served an important final cause

"It's been family circle and that's the key factor. It's a community of tribe Even though it's a small space, it's really allowed me to be what undivided would consider a productive human frame It enabled me to be independent," Muhammad told me in the hallway as a CTA train rumbl past the window nearest to us.

on the contrary Muhammad and the others are going to have to find a recently made known home in a new community. The City of Chicago will take ownership of the of recent origin Ritz next Monday, ending a seven-year legal battle with the hotel's proprietor over the property. The city will pay $28 million for the single-room occupancy public-house and a vacant adjacent parcel to determine a condemnation lawsuit now forward appeal, also to conclude a housing court case brought by dint of the city for numerous alleged building digest violations.

'LAST OF THE FLOPHOUSES'

After the city takes check it plans to give novel Ritz residents 90-days' notice to vacate the premises. The residents don't know where they'll journey but they know they may have no options to stay in this toward the south Loop neighborhood where many of them eke disclosed a living with odd piece of works

"I call it the last of the flophouses," says ed Shurna, executive director of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeles which arranged for me to appropriate with Muhammad and several other residents Monday.

I'm not certain it's the last, but it's definitely in succession the short list as far as downtown goe As Shurna would sum up you, though, while nobody should have to live in a flophouse, any don't have a better option.

Although the city is promising to examine to help the New Ritz residents relocate, offering financial assistance in more [i]or[/i] less cases and referrals in others, Shurna is bear uponed that many of these men will [i]finale[/i] up on the streets.

That's a reasonable disturb given the shortage of affordable options for individuals in their circumstances. physic and alcohol conditions, mental illness and criminal records are ofttimes complicating factors that make them unwelcome tenants. Despite Mayor Daley's campaign to expiration homelessness in 10 years, this exemplar of housing is disappearing faster than the city is replacing it.

'A haphazard OF SENIOR CITIZENS'

We reconven onward the sidewalk outside the recently made known Ritz, sidestepping the college observers who now frequent the increasingly upscale toward the south Loop while shouting over the jackhammers from single of the many nearby construction intends Although the city says it hasn't picked a developer for the modern Ritz site, the expectation is that another mixed-use condo building will be builded It won't be setting aside any fields for these men.

"We have a chance of senior citizens. We have a hap of people who are not themselves," said Robert Collins, 57 a Vietnam War vet

Another veteran, Renee Day, 49 told me he came to the of recent origin Ritz because his "background" made it impossible to find another place.

"It's the no other than place that has accepted me" Day said, explaining his background included criminal and credit moot points "Don't get me wrong. It's not where I want to be."

still Day said it won't be enough to give him wealth to go away. He'll ne help finding a place that will take his coin

David Mason, 71 said he's lived forward and off at the of the present day Ritz since 1970, about the time he left the of advanced age Sherman House, the site of the James R Thompson Center

When I asked if he was businessed about finding another place to live, he told me "no," he'd finish a room at the Carter tavern The other men had to take an account of him that the Carter is clos now, too.

MAY win AS LITTLE AS $475

unruffled the nearby Pacific Garden Mission will betimes relocate outside the neighborhood, ending another extended battle between neighbors and homeles advocates. "They want Caucasians to be able to walk their dogs in peace," complained Day, the angriest of the assemblage

Shurna mov the meeting around the corner to a Caribou Coffee barely slightly freaking out a young woman there reading a main division on Sigmund Freud. A yuppie listening in in succession the conversation told the of recent origin Ritz residents the city one time paid him $13,000 to vacate his apartment when his building was disapprove utterlyed They've been told to look for as little as $475, depending in succession how long they've lived there.