RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

More than a dozen el­der­ly res­i­dents in up­per-floor apart­ments at Ol­era Heights, San Fer­nan­do, are plead­ing with the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) to re­pair the build­ing’s bro­ken el­e­va­tor.

 The res­i­dents claim the el­e­va­tor was in work­ing con­di­tion un­til three weeks ago when work­ers, pur­port­ed­ly from the HDC, came to ser­vice it at the Tu­rure Build­ing Six.

Kelvin Scott, who us­es a wheel­chair and lives on the sec­ond floor, was among those af­fect­ed by the el­e­va­tor break­down. He is bat­tling mul­ti­ple health is­sues, in­clud­ing arthri­tis and heart dis­ease, and said his health is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing as he is trapped in his apart­ment.

 “Since the el­e­va­tor spoiled, I can­not go up or come down. I used to wheel in­to the el­e­va­tor and go down­stairs to get some air, but now I have to stay here,” he said.

Hol­lis Ever­s­ley, 92, who lives on the third floor, re­called a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent in 2012 when the el­e­va­tor was out of ser­vice for six months.

“Back then I could still move but now that I have had knee surgery, I am feel­ing the weak­ness. I can­not walk down those stairs,” he said.

Thel­ma Cae­sar, a pen­sion­er, said back then res­i­dents had to haul gro­ceries up­stairs us­ing a rope. De­spite re­port­ing the el­e­va­tor is­sues to the HDC mul­ti­ple times, Cae­sar said no ac­tion has been tak­en.

 “I have to pay a man $100 to car­ry up my gro­ceries up­stairs. Be­fore, my hus­band used a rope to pull up the gro­ceries, but now he walks with a stick and can­not do that any­more,” she said.

Apart from the el­e­va­tor chal­lenges, Kevon Lal, a blind ten­ant said they were al­so grap­pling with wa­ter prob­lems as a faulty pump made it dif­fi­cult for res­i­dents on high­er floors to get a sup­ply

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said based on a re­port she re­ceived there was van­dal­ism at the build­ing. She said the HDC will re­pair the bro­ken el­e­va­tor by the mid­dle of next week.

Robin­son-Reg­is said the HDC has been main­tain­ing the el­e­va­tors as well as garbage dis­pos­al, through its sub­sidiary com­pa­nies.

Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Jay­selle Mc Far­lane said an HDC team con­duct­ed vis­its on Fri­day.

“There is a new sys­tem where the fa­cil­i­ties man­agers vis­it all prop­er­ties and then re­port by 12 o’clock on cer­tain ar­eas of work. When they vis­it­ed the el­e­va­tor last Fri­day they re­port­ed van­dal­ism. But­tons went miss­ing in Build­ing Six,” she said.

 She said there were some is­sues re­lat­ed to el­e­va­tor parts which have not yet been de­liv­ered but the prob­lem will be fixed by next week.