Atlanta seniors voice safety, broken elevator concerns at apartment complex
Broken elevator plagues southwest Atlanta senior home
Residents at the Adamsville Green senior community reported living with a broken elevator for over a year before property owner Mercy House promised a complete replacement.
ATLANTA - Seniors living in a southwest Atlanta apartment complex are voicing concerns over broken elevators, security issues and unsanitary building conditions.
Southwest Atlanta senior housing
What we know:
Residents at Adamsville Green Senior Apartments, located at 3537 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive SW in southwest Atlanta, describe their living conditions as "terrible". Senior tenants state they have complained to management for more than a year without receiving a resolution.
The primary issue involves the building's main service elevator, which accesses all four floors. Video taken Thursday confirmed the service elevator is not working. While a second elevator operates on the property, it only goes up to the third floor, leaving fourth-floor residents trapped or struggling on the stairs.
Many tenants are older, live on fixed incomes and rely on canes or walkers. Residents also report odors of urine and feces in the building's carpets, broken security cameras, an out-of-order front entry gate and unhoused individuals sleeping in hallways overnight.
What they're saying:
While many tenants are afraid to speak out, two residents stepped forward to detail the daily struggle facing neighbors forced to navigate the building without a working main elevator.
"First of all, you don't have an elevator, freight elevator's down," resident Melvin Bradley Bass said. "And it's been down for a year. You know, 'Oh, we're working on it.' That was last year, okay?"
Another resident described the physical toll on senior neighbors who are forced to cross the building to find a working option.
"The elevator's been out forever," she said. "They had to walk all the way from this annex, all the way over to my side, just to come out downstairs from the third floor or walk the stairs. Walkers, canes—they got to make it all the way down here."
Apartment management response
The other side:
Property management issued a statement addressing the broken elevator and maintenance concerns.
"We recognize the inconvenience the elevator outage has caused residents, particularly those traveling between the third and fourth floors," management stated. "When it became clear that the system could not be operated reliably, we took it out of service and ordered a complete replacement."
Elevator replacement timeline
What's next:
Management confirmed that installation of the new service elevator system is scheduled to begin Monday, Sept. 21.
What we don't know:
Property owners have not specified how long the installation process will take or whether additional security measures will be implemented to address broken gates or individuals sleeping in the hallways.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered from interviews with Adamsville Green Senior Apartments residents, video documentation, and statements provided by apartment management.