Elderly Stranded At Senior Living Apartments Due To Broken Elevator Needing Inspected

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — Seniors living at a special community went approximately two weeks without a working elevator at their complex, stranded many of them who cannot navigate up to four flights of stairs just to leave their building.

A representative of Potomac Management, which operates the publicly subsidized St. Paul's Senior Living Apartments located at 1207 Addison Road, told WUSA9 that the elevator had been repaired after a 12-day outage, but hadn't been able to be brought back online because it needed a state department of labor and licensing inspection still.

A search by WUSA9 of DPIE records show 29 violation notices were issued to the management company for the complex from 2018 to April 13.

State elected leaders and inspectors with the county's department of permitting, inspection and enforcement visited the residents and checked out the building to see if they could help encourage the state to send an inspector sooner rather than later.

Fourth floor neighbors Almetrice Paige and Delores Walls described the isolation on their hall to WUSA9.

"(It’s) lot of people -- we can’t get down; you can’t bring in groceries," Paige said.

"This is awful," Hall added.

Residents reported to WUSA9 that firefighters have been called to help get residents back and forth for appointments and church. Prince George's Fire/EMS authorities could not confirm the claims to WUSA9. Building managers tasked maintenance workers with delivering groceries and medication to residents who could not leave their apartments.

Read more at WUSA9