After years of frequent elevator outages at a Roxbury housing complex, a state disability board fined the Boston Housing Authority nearly $400,000. The BHA will ultimately only have to pay a fraction of that cost.
One building in the Ruth Barkley Apartments had a two-week elevator outage in fall 2023. Then, last Thanksgiving, a two-day outage led some seniors and residents with disabilities to cancel their holiday plans. The elevators averaged more than one outage a month since September, according to the Boston Housing Authority.
Disability advocate Michael Muehe says the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board only issues fines in “the most egregious cases.”
“It’s rare. The state access board, they almost bend over backwards not to issue fines,” said Muehe, an access analyst for the civil rights nonprofit Boston Center for Independent Living. “It’s like, ‘We need to acknowledge the seriousness of this complaint. And given our efforts [to address the accessibility problem] so far haven’t yielded adequate results, then we don’t have much left but to issue a fine.’”
Persistent problems with the elevator have been in headlines for years. Residents, advocates and city councilors rally around it as a civil rights issue for seniors and people with disabilities. One wheelchair user who lived in the building in 2024 told GBH News that she was afraid of the elevator and has someone accompany her when she rides it. Another wheelchair user said the first time he dealt with an elevator outage, he waited in the lobby for hours before eventually dragging himself up five flights of stairs to his apartment.
Major repairs or replacements are costly, and officials with the Boston Housing Authority have consistently pointed to chronic underfunding at the federal level. Day-to-day operations of the complex are funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“I’m thankful for the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board for taking this issue seriously,” City Councilor Ed Flynn told GBH News. “I also know that this is not an isolated incident at Ruth Barkley and this continues throughout Boston Housing Authority developments throughout the city.”
Flynn wants the housing authority to investigate elevator issues across its portfolio of Boston properties.
“Boston Housing Authority can no longer ignore what’s taking place throughout their developments,” Flynn said. “We can’t accept the status quo. This is civil rights. These are federal issues. Boston Housing Authority needs to be in compliance now.”
The BHA will only be asked to pay 1% of the $363,000 fine, or $3,630. The board has not yet set when the fine is due.
A spokesperson for the board did not immediately respond to questions about why only a small fraction of the fine will need to be paid, but advocates who attended the hearing say board members acknowledged too high a fine could delay problems with the elevator actually getting fixed with a limited pot of money.
Dawn Oates, a disability advocate who runs the nonprofit PlayBrigade, has been working with residents for years. She initially filed the complaint with the board almost three years ago.
“You’ve got a finding from a state agency saying: ‘You were found to be wrong, but let’s not have you fight it in court, so let’s abate it down to 1%,’” Oates said. “It’s a real finding, but it’s also a symbolic victory.”
A spokesperson for the Boston Housing Authority told GBH News the city agency is investing $10 million in many of the 15 elevators at Ruth Barkley.
“We are proud of the two modernized elevators that we brought online last year at the site, and the eight more that are being actively modernized now,” the spokesperson wrote Tuesday.
The spokesperson attributed the outage last Thanksgiving to “an unfortunate lapse” in staff following protocols, saying it “had an unacceptable effect on our residents at one Barkley address, and led us to make additional updates and changes.”
“Although we are disappointed in the Architectural Access Board’s decision [Monday], in response to that specific incident, we will continue to work with them to advance our shared goal of reliable access to home for all BHA residents,” the spokesperson continued.
Even with those funding shortfalls, many are still pushing for bigger changes to the elevator service.
“They should be prioritizing these accessibility things ahead of some other things in the budget,” Oates said.
Muehe added that “whether it’s to go to doctor’s appointments or whether it’s going to a job or to school, whatever it is, they need that elevator. Just to go grocery shopping, they need that elevator.”
