Local News

Broken Boston Housing Authority elevator causes concern for residents

An elevator in a BHA building has been broken for nearly two weeks, impacting residents.

Virginia Dillard, 64, gets a reminder message about transportation for an upcoming medical appointment. Pat Greenhouse/Boston Globe

By Ross Cristantiello

September 26, 2023

2 minutes to read

Residents and housing advocates are calling attention to an elevator in a Boston Housing Authority building they say has been broken for close to two weeks, imperiling those who live there.

The elevator, the only one located inside the Ruth Lillian Barkley Apartments at 19 Monsignor Reynolds Way in the South End, first broke on Sept. 14, WCVB reported.

The BHA said it is working “diligently” with an elevator contractor to make the necessary repairs, according to WCVB. Staff was notified immediately after the elevator broke, but the parts necessary for its repair are reportedly hard to come by. BHA cited the age of the elevator as the reason for this.

“We’ve placed an expedited order for the replacement part to be delivered from the West Coast, and we’re hoping for its delivery and final repairs in the coming days,” the BHA said in a statement to the news station.

In the meantime, residents like 64-year-old Virginia Dillard are left to navigate the challenges of going to and from their apartments with only stairs. Dillard, who has Crohn’s disease and relies on a walker to get from place to place, hadn’t left her apartment in more than a week as of Sunday, The Boston Globe reported. She feared falling on the stairs, and cannot climb them on her own.

“I’m scared to go out [because] I may not be able to get back in,” she told the Globe.

The BHA is regularly communicating with and updating residents on the repair work, officials said in their statement. BHA staff conducted wellness checks with every household in the building, they said. A tenant coordinator and another BHA worker were assigned to be on duty in the building to help residents, according to the Globe.

The building was built in 1950, and money has already been set aside for a “major” elevator upgrade. This is part of the BHA’s capital plan, and officials said in a statement that it is an immediate priority. A total of $6 million was allocated to completely overhaul the elevators in the Ruth Barkley buildings, and another $100,000 was put into an emergency fund for elevator service in fiscal year 2023.

Dillard has missed two doctor’s appointments since the elevator broke, the Globe reported.

Teresa Hudson, a resident who uses a wheelchair, told the paper that the elevator was unreliable before fully breaking. Hudson’s first-floor apartment shares a wall with the elevator shaft, she told the Globe. She described hearing people screaming from inside the elevator after it became stuck.

“It just felt so wrong to hear people screaming like that,” she said.

In their statement, the BHA said that funding was an issue.

“This issue is symptomatic of the chronic underfunding of the Federal Public Housing program over many years and decades, which has resulted in deferred capital needs and old, outdated equipment,” officials said in their statement.