Boston Housing Panel Demands Action on Broken BHA Elevators Trapping Disabled Residents

BOSTON — November 22, 2024 — Boston Housing Authority faces civil rights reckoning over chronic elevator failures in public housing. The City Council Committee on Housing and Community Development, chaired by Councillor Liz Breadon, heard Friday from BHA Administrator Kenzie Bach, Disability Commissioner Kristin McCosh, and more than a dozen residents of Ruth Barclay Apartments, 42 Harrison Archway, and East Brookline Street buildings, where outages have lasted weeks and left elderly and disabled tenants unable to reach medical appointments. Bach announced the BHA last week issued a design RFP for modernization of eight Ruth Barclay elevators, funded by a $4 million city capital appropriation approved in June and a $1 million state bond earmark, with a design contract expected in December or January. The BHA also holds signed upgrade contracts for four additional elevator installations beginning in January, and for the first time in several bidding cycles received multiple qualified bids for a new multi-year service contract at Ruth Barclay. Councillor Edward M. Flynn, the hearing's lead sponsor, called the situation "a civil rights issue" and said a lack of funding "is unacceptable" as a reason to remain out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Community organizer Dawn Oates, who has filed eight state Architectural Access Board complaints, called for an independent elevator consultant to assess real replacement costs, warning that piecemeal repairs leave residents cycling through the same crisis indefinitely.