Scattered proof
Notices, texts, and receipts live in separate places until someone needs them all at once.
Housing file · Cook County first
They taped five days to your door.
The notice is on the glass. Your phone is full of screenshots. Legal aid wants one file, not a camera roll. Chicago may already have the building on a list — and you have five days under Illinois law before the clock runs out.
If they name a day, that day is a claim.
Folio is the living file for that apartment: notice, city records, rent ledger, dated promise, and the packet you hand across the desk.
Open a file on a real building
1757 W Berteau Ave is live city data. Not a mock.
The problem
Panic looks like a folder that does not exist.
You photograph the five-day notice. Then the texts. Then the broken heat. Then the money order stub. Each one lands in a different album, a different thread, a different night you could not sleep.
When the landlord says “we’ll fix it Friday,” that promise dies in the camera roll. When legal aid asks for one packet, you have fifty screenshots and no ledger. The judge will not scroll your phone.
No ledger
Who paid what, when — missing until intake asks. Then you rebuild it under a deadline.
Promises vanish
A named date is a claim. Without a stamp and a file, it is just another message.
Real-world data
A national crisis. A live wedge in Cook County.
Folio starts where the paper trail and open data already collide — Chicago and Cook — so the same file shape can expand city by city.
~3.6M
U.S. eviction filings / year
Typical annual volume nationwide.
Eviction Lab
~12k
Cook County eviction orders, 2023
About 11,988 orders executed that year.
Cook County Sheriff
40k+
Cook filings since Apr 2022
Post-moratorium filings in the county.
Cook County courts
~1.16M
Open Chicago building violations
Live open-data rows — not a private scrape.
Chicago SODA
The clock
Illinois five-day pay-or-quit
735 ILCS 5/9-209. Five days after service is not a vibe — it is the window before the next step can start.
Statute
The solution
One living file for the apartment.
Folio holds the notice, Chicago’s own building pull, the rent ledger, RLTO / habitability checklist, demand letter, dated claim, watch link, exhibits, and export pack — so you are not empty-handed at the housing desk.
On the file
They promised Friday. That’s a claim.
Notice · Chicago open problems · ledger · the day they named.
Notice
5 days
Chicago
Open
Promise
Fri
- 01Type or Snap the noticePhotograph the paper on the door, or type it in. Folio structures the deadline, landlord, and amount. Add a proof-of-service photo when you have it.
- 02Pull Chicago + keep the ledgerOpen building violations land next to the notice — with unit vs. building honesty. Track rent paid and owed. Work the RLTO / habitability checklist. Draft the demand that asks for a date in writing.
- 03Stamp the claim. Share the watch.When they name a day, Folio flashes it on the file. Send a watch link legal aid can open live (revoke anytime). Build packet exhibits, export the pack, add a court case number, set email reminders.
Why Cook first
Start where open data meets the five-day clock.
Cook County and the City of Chicago already publish building violations at scale. Illinois names the five-day pay-or-quit in statute. That is enough to ship a real file — not a pitch deck — and prove the shape works before the next city.
Folio is not a one-city product. Cook is the live wedge. The same apartment file expands later; New York City is already stubbed in the jurisdiction pack for the next cut.
Live now
Cook County · Chicago
SODA building pull, Illinois five-day framing, RLTO checklist, demo addresses with live records.
Next cities
NYC stub · same file shape
Jurisdiction pack is ready to grow. New open-data sources plug into the same notice → city → claim path.
Real buildings. Live records.
Open one. Pull Chicago. See what the city already wrote down.
- 1757 W Berteau AveNorth Side · 60613The demo. Notice already on the file.
- 5074 N Lincoln AveNorth Side · 60625Open city problems, pulled live.
- 7243 S Peoria StSouth Side · 60621Open city problems, pulled live.
What Folio is not
Not a lawyer. Does not file in court. Does not talk to the judge. It is the paper trail — notice, city list, ledger, dated promise, exhibits — so you are not empty-handed at the housing desk.