Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer charged the owner of a Los Angeles senior city apartment with 16 counts for sporadic outages and elevator service for two months.
NBC Los Angeles reports Feuer filed charges against CCOA Housing Corp. and its CEO and President Gong (Donald) Toy.
“It’s outrageous that vulnerable seniors living in a 16-story high-rise have endured multiple days without safe and working elevators,” Feuer said in a statement, reported The Real Deal. “Nobody — especially older adults — should be trapped as we allege has happened here.”
As AsAmNews earlier reported, the outages at Cathay Manor forced some seniors to climb as many as 15 flights of stairs.
Nearby businesses say tenants are afraid to leave the building because they fear returning to inoperable elevators.
“They’ve been trying real, real hard to get it functioning. Unfortunately, because they’re so old, there’s no readily parts for some of them,” Toy said to NBC LA. “Why doesn’t it work? I don’t know, I’m not a mechanic. We trust whoever’s there, and I was told that because after 20 years, they’re no longer obligated to make parts or have parts readily available.”
Others, however, aren’t buying into the explanation.
“The organization that manages this building, he doesn’t treat these people like human beings. He doesn’t care about life and death,” Wing Ng said to KTLA.
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