Seniors in Buffalo say they are 'prisoners in their homes' due to failing elevators

“It’s a mess, It’s a mess. 99% of the time it goes down on Friday.”

Seniors who live at the LBJ Apartments in Buffalo are calling out the housing authority.

“This isn’t normal, we have had our elevators down now since Wednesday to my knowledge,” said the Vice President of the tenant council Carmela Dorsey.

They want to know why they elevators are not reliable in a building where they say many residents rely on their accessibility to move around.

Saturday night when our 7 Eyewitness crews arrived, two women had been stuck in the lobby for 8 hours, afraid to use the elevators that had broken down numerous times throughout the day to get to their rooms.

Other residents say they are trapped in their homes, unable to take the elevators down.

One man says he was forced to take 10 flights of stairs to get to his room.

“I have congestive heart failure, theres no way I’m supposed to walking up and down that amount of stairs, but you have no other choice”

We called the emergency maintenance line to ask about the status of the repair and were told only one call came across the log at 11:30 Saturday morning which was responded to.

Residents say they called many more times than that throughout the day.

Have a news tip, question or comment?