Thomas MacMillan Photo
Just in time for the tail end of a brutal heat wave, air conditioners went back on at the Constance Baker Motley public housing complex for the elderly — offering more relief for some tenants than for others.
Karen DuBois-Walton, executive director of New Haven’s housing authority, said the air conditioning went back at the Sherman Parkway complex Thursday morning.
A visit to the complex found the situation was a little more complicated than that.
The cool air was flowing for some seniors on Thursday afternoon. Other tenants, like Mitchell Williams (pictured), could feel only a weak trickle of lukewarm air leaking from their A/C units.
The tenants had been without air conditioning all year. As the city sweltered under a record heat wave this week, the elderly and disabled public housing tenants were left to sweat it out.
On Thursday, a week after the Independent reported the problem, DuBois-Walton announced the good news. “There’s cool air blowing once again,” she said. “The problem has been resolved.”
DuBois-Walton said the Motley tenants were pleased at the repair. “They’re very happy.” She said she wished the cooling could have been fixed in time for the “really hot days” on Monday and Tuesday.
She said she didn’t know exactly what had gone wrong. It was an electrical problem having to do with the “motherboard,” she said. The A/C system needs a complete overhaul in the future, she said. But for now it is at least working.
“They’re cool again,” DuBois-Walton said of the tenants.
But Mitchell Williams, who lives in apartment 306, said he’s not cool. He was sitting in his wheelchair outside the building Thursday afternoon in tan shorts and black socks. “It’s half-fixed,” he said. “It’s like a big joke.”
The A/C unit in his apartment was blowing just a weak stream of air, he said. “It’s not completely fixed the way it’s supposed to be fixed.”
Verna Wells, a fifth-floor tenant who called statewide legal services last week to complain about the broken A/C, said her air conditioning is on, but not working perfectly. She said she wasn’t going to complain anymore. “I’m thankful we do have a little bit of air,” she said.
“What’s the point of having it working if it’s not working properly?” Williams said.
Williams, who’s 53, wheeled into the building, where it felt just a few degrees cooler than outside. The hallways and elevator were still very warm.
Up in his third-floor apartment, Williams placed his hand over the floor-mounted A/C unit. “It’s just barely pushing out air,” he said.
“If you go down to the housing authority office downtown, they got good A/C,” Williams said. If they had a problem there, it would be fixed in 24 hours, he predicted.
“We’re not asking for anything more than what you promised in the lease,” he said.
If he didn’t pay his rent, he’d get an eviction notice within a matter of days, Williams said. “But we can’t send an eviction notice to them.”
Williams pulled a can of Diet Pepsi out of a chest freezer in his living room. He said he hasn’t been able to cook anything in his apartment; it’s just too hot. Last night, he considered renting a motel room to get out of the heat, but it would have left him without enough money for the rest of the month. Instead, he just took cold showers and doused himself in washcloths dipped in a bucket of ice.
“The Housing Authority of the City of New Haven is not a bad agency,” Williams said. Housing authority workers fixed a leaky faucet and a shower problem he had. “They were right here to fix it,” he said. “Why can’t you be on top of the A/C??
Back outside, another tenant said his air conditioning wasn’t working either. “It’s on but it’s not blowing no air.”
Tenant Douglas Bethea said his air conditioning was working fine. “It’s blowing out cold air.”
A housing authority worker pulled up in a van. He asked whose A/C was broken and followed Williams towards his apartment to check on his.
The worker, who asked not to be named, put his hand up to a dormant ceiling vent in the stuffy hallway. “Before, the hallway was cool,” he said. “I don’t know what happened.”
“I know exactly what happened,” Williams said. “Nobody from the [housing authority] office lives here.”
Inside, the worker put his hand over Williams’ A/C unit. “There’s no cold air coming out of here,” he said.
“That’s the whole point,” Williams replied.
The worker promised to inform his supervisor. The contractors who worked on the system might have to take a look at it again, he said. The A/C is working in most apartments, he said.
William Suggs, head of the building’s Tenant Residence Council, said the building may just need time to cool down after being without air conditioning for so long. He said tenants aren’t ready to celebrate A/C repair quite yet. “They’re at a waiting stage.”