Elderly tenants in Chinatown struggle with broken elevators, no laundry
Elderly residents in Chinatown made their voices heard at a protest on Monday.
CHINATOWN (KABC) -- Tenants at Cathay Manor in Chinatown held a protest outside of their residence on Monday, saying they have been struggling to get their laundry room and elevators fixed.
"These are all elderly tenants on low income on section eight," said Phyllis Chiu, a volunteer for Chinatown Community for Equitable Development.
The tenants say they're not getting much response from management.
"The elevators have been offline for 11 days. So, we are trying to help the tenants to get back a working elevator," Chiu said.
One of the elevators in the 15-story building was fixed on Monday. But tenants believe it's only because the management company knew about their plan to protest.
The tenants say having one elevator has forced them to cram together to use it, despite worries of COVID.
Tenants say it doesn't stop at the elevators. They have also complained that the laundry room has been broken and shut down for some time.
"Elderly 80 or 90-year-old tenants are washing their clothes, their bed sheets or towels in the bathroom sink and then hanging them up in the bathroom to dry," said Chiu.
Cathay Manor owner Don Toy told ABC7 the elevators are old and many of these parts are not available. But Toy said he's waiting for them to be manufactured in order to get the other elevator up and running while working on a plan to modernize them.
Toy also said he's working on getting the laundry room fixed and reopened in the near future. He says it is expensive to fix, so he is waiting on proposals.
