Chicago aldermen call for improvements to mail delivery delays on city’s South Side
Three South Side aldermen called Thursday for the Postal Service to fix big delays in mail delivery.
Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, who represents part of the 60636 ZIP code in West Englewood, said residents are going two to three weeks without getting mail, a problem that dates back nearly a year to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People are getting charged late fees on bills they never received. It’s totally unacceptable,” Lopez said. “All they keep telling us is ‘COVID, COVID, COVID.’ They need to fix the situation.”
He joined neighboring colleagues Ald. Stephanie Coleman, 16th, and David Moore, 17th, to call for the Postal Service and members of Congress who represent the area to fix the problem.
“Now they’re telling people to come stand in line at the post office to get their mail,” Lopez said. “We’ve got lots of seniors in the area, the weather is getting dangerously cold. This is no way to handle the situation. They have to do better.”
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A U.S. Postal Service spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about the situation.
Mail delivery has been a problem in parts of Chicago for years, but residents have reported even more problems during the coronavirus pandemic, as more people order goods to be delivered to their homes and pandemic protocols further slow delivery.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, also eliminated U.S. Postal Service overtime last year and instituted other cost-cutting measures at the agency that slowed service.
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