Just one day after Pride Month ended, Don Bell, 75, was told he had to leave his home. A sheriff allowed him only his phone, charger and wallet before escorting him out of Town Hall Apartments, a senior housing facility for LGBTQ+ residents that he helped establish.
“The loss of my housing was the loss of my life,” Bell said.
That same week, Bell found out that he lost his housing subsidy. Both the eviction and loss of his subsidy stemmed from a legal battle between Bell and the building’s management company, 5T Management, relating to his significantly younger husband.
Without this housing subsidy, Bell said he doesn’t think he’ll be able to live in Chicago anymore.
“It’s the loss of everything,” Bell said.
Fallout from a trespassing ban
A longtime community activist for LGBTQ+ rights and one of Town Hall’s first residents, Bell said facing eviction has been especially difficult given his age and level of ability.
Bell sat at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., after being evicted, waiting for a call from the Salvation Army that would have connected him with temporary housing, but that help never came. A friend came later that day and helped Bell find a place to sleep later that night.
“Nobody wanted this to happen,” Bell said, stating that he’s never failed to pay his rent on time or been a threat to the safety of his neighbors. “It is what it is. So I gotta deal with it.”
Bell had been working with the Chicago Housing Authority to find new housing, but the eviction effectively canceled the process, he said.
Bell’s eviction stems from a series of events involving his husband, Austin Ashenfelter, 27, whom he met in February 2024 and married in August that year. At the time, Ashenfelter was on probation after pleading guilty to burglary in 2020 and serving two years in prison for stealing a truck while under the influence.
Without prior formal warnings, 5T Management issued a trespass restriction against Ashenfelter. Court filings from October 2024 cite Ashenfelter’s repeated unauthorized presence at Town Hall Apartments and smoking in common areas as reasons for the lease termination.
According to the documents, Ashenfelter was banned sometime before July 13, 2024 but continued entering using Bell’s key fob.
The documents detail Ashenfelter’s three separate arrests at Town Hall Apartments. He believes he was targeted for his criminal history.
“I should be who I am to them from the day I met them,” Ashenfelter said. “The fact is I turned my life around once I came back up here and got out of prison.”
One of Ashenfelter’s arrests happened after the couple returned from getting married in Sangamon County, Bell said. The two returned to Town Hall Apartments and realized Bell’s key fob no longer worked. A neighbor let them in but the on-site manager, David James, confronted Ashenfelter and called the police, resulting in a second arrest, Bell said.
An official document from the Chicago Housing Authority dated on October 1, 2024 shows Ashenfelter listed as Bell’s spouse and an authorized household member at Town Hall Apartments.
“I was on the voucher, I was on the lease,” Ashenfelter said.
Bell and Ashenfelter said they believed he had the right to live in Town Hall Apartments with Bell as his husband.
Another arrest happened when Ashenfelter—unable to afford a hotel—slept in a hammock in the backside of the building. Court documents allege he attempted to break into cars and six days later was seen with a guest who removed her pants in a common area. Bell was out of town at the time.
Ashenfelter said he entered a car that night to charge his phone and returned the items he took that same night. He accepted a misdemeanor plea deal to avoid violating his probation. Bell said if building management had allowed his husband to stay inside, the incident would never have happened.
An eviction agreement
Bell’s eviction became final in January when Bell entered a court agreement to move out by April 6, but Bell claimed he didn’t understand what he was agreeing to when it came up in court.
Tiffany Moore, director of operations for 5T Management, told Block Club Chicago in March that Bell could have avoided eviction by turning in his keys and moving out of Town Hall Apartments on his own accord.
“This is not something we wanted to do,” Tiffany Moore told Block Club. “We really did work at trying to have him cure the issues we have, but, unfortunately, they did not get cured in the time they needed to be done. That’s the only reason why now we are in eviction court.”
Bell claims this offer was never communicated to him.
“They never told me. That was never part of anything,” Bell said.
Jim Pickett, a longtime friend of Bell, claimed he “was not afforded due process.”
“The folks who run Town Hall, the 5T Management company, and the staff and team at Center on Halsted and those who work with the senior and elder population—they really failed Don,” Pickett said.
Moore declined to comment on the latest updates to Bell’s eviction case.
“5T has no further information to provide other than information provided in the previous Block Club article,” Moore stated in an email.
On April 17, 2025, Bell secured legal representation from Uptown People’s Law Center. However, according to his attorney Bridget Lenczewski, the opportunity to present his case may have already passed. She said the settlement agreement that Bell’s former lawyer entered him into limits their choices.
They’re now working to retroactively dismiss the case, vacate the judgement and have the eviction sealed—offering Bell a potential path to housing again.
For Bell that would mean a fresh start to move on from the situation that’s turned his life upside down.
Finding solace in love
Bell’s relationship with Ashenfelter has also been a source of comfort, he said. Bell had already come to terms with the idea of spending his life single, but that changed when he met Ashenfelter.
“This finally settled after decades of yearning and feeling less than, [that] there’s something wrong, because nobody wants to be with me,” Bell said.
Ashenfelter recalls staying up the entire night when the two first met—just striking up endless conversations. “At one point, he was surprised that I came back for him, to hang out with him,” he said.
Bell brings Ashenfelter along to events associated with his community leadership. He’s even had the opportunity to meet the mayor on multiple occasions.
“The only reason he’s with me is because it gives him access to the only Black man he really loves, and that’s Mayor Brandon Johnson,” Bell joked.
On June 29, 2025, Bell said his husband pleaded his eviction case to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s team at the Chicago Pride Parade.
“He sticks up for me,” Bell said.
Bell said people have questioned whether Ashenfelter might be taking advantage of Bell in the relationship, but Bell said that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“The assumption that my relationship with Austin is transactional, either because he’s young and taking advantage of me, or I’m older and incapacitated, or I’m older and taking advantage of this youth is insulting,” Bell said.
Bell encouraged people to challenge their assumptions about age and relationships, especially in the LGBTQ+ community.
“Nobody is more surprised about it than I am,” Bell said.
Ashenfelter echoed that their love is true and unconditional.
“I’ll love him until he dies, if he’d allow me. I’ll be there to the day he needs me to wipe his ass,” Ashenfelter said. “I’m that committed.”
The search for home continues
Bell’s legal battle has been emotionally taxing, expensive and confusing, Bell said.
A GoFundMe organized by Pickett raised $10,000, but Bell said most of it already went toward legal fees and personal costs like storage. And Bell still feels like he never had a chance to tell his full side of the story in court.
Ashenfelter said the most taxing part of the entire ordeal is the “lack of responsibility” taken by building management.
Bell found temporary shelter, but both he and Ashenfelter remain frustrated and uncertain.
Bell moved into Town Hall Apartments when it opened in 2014. The LGBTQ+ senior housing project, initially managed by Heartland Alliance, was later handed over to 5T Management due to financial struggles. A 2015 Bloomberg article estimated that about 40,000 LGBTQ+ elders live in Chicago.
“How does it happen that a gay elder with my involvement and advocacy in the community happens to be evicted,” Bell said. “The very safety that this place was supposed to provide me, it has now been taken away.”
Bell serves many active roles in the community including at the Illinois Department on Aging’s LGBTQ+ advocacy commission, sat on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Advisory Council on LGBTQ+ Affairs and served on the boards of multiple organizations, including One Roof Chicago and the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.
But with no place to stay in Chicago, he’s considering resigning from all of his roles.
“I can’t live in Chicago. I can’t afford it. I have no place,” he said. “That means that my service to the community also must come to an end.”
