Inside a sixth-floor apartment at Richard G. Lugar Tower in downtown Indianapolis, a thermometer recently read 91 degrees. The air conditioning has been broken for weeks at the 17-story public housing high-rise that houses more than 200 low-income seniors and people with disabilities, and Marion County health officials have now ordered the Indianapolis Housing Agency to fix it or pay fines.
The order, issued August 17, gives IHA a deadline to repair the building's cooling system, according to WISH-TV. The station reports Lugar Tower currently has seven open violations, and residents say the heat has made daily life unbearable. “It is so hot, I can’t even sleep,” resident Bettina McCloud told the station.
Paula Lasley, who has lived at Lugar Tower for five years, said the agency's response to complaints has become numbingly familiar. “Officials constantly tell residents they do not have funds to fix or do anything,” Lasley said, per WISH-TV's reporting. Under Marion County's municipal code, occupied residential health violations like these fall to the Marion County Public Health Department, which handles inspections and civil penalties for occupied units while the city separately manages vacant structures.
A Building Already Under Federal Scrutiny
The broken air conditioning is just the latest item on a long list of maintenance failures at Lugar Tower. Residents have reported missing ceiling tiles exposing wires, water leaks, and mold and general disrepair in common areas and individual units, the station's report notes. As of Thursday, the agency had not cleaned a sixth-floor unit where a body was found on July 31, according to the same account.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees IHA, recently finished a physical inspection of the tower and is working with the agency to address the property's problems, per the WISH-TV report. HUD also gave IHA a $3 million receivership award, though the agency has not clarified how that money will be used. The Indiana Attorney General's office has recommended that tenants complain directly to HUD about IHA property issues, the outlet reports.
U.S. Representative André Carson, a Democrat representing Indiana, has voiced support for federal help with the agency's yearslong problems while also blaming Trump administration funding and personnel cuts for hurting progress at the property. Housing agency officials told WISH-TV a repair company was expected at Lugar Tower on Friday.
Years of Neglect Behind the Crisis
Lugar Tower's air conditioning failure is the newest symptom of a collapse years in the making. HUD and the City of Indianapolis stripped IHA of its independence in April 2024 and placed the agency under federal receivership after years of severe property neglect and financial disarray, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal. Yvonda Bean took over as IHA's leader in February 2025 and launched a 12-month recovery plan that May, bringing experience from housing authority turnarounds in Louisiana and South Carolina, according to Mirror Indy.
Despite that leadership change, conditions at Lugar Tower have remained dangerous. In June 2026, a man and a woman were injured in a shooting inside the building just days after a court dismissed a tenant lawsuit over security staffing, WTHR reported. Court filings cited by WFYI show police responded to the building 883 times between January 2023 and June 2025 for calls including trespassing, narcotics violations, robberies, and shots fired.
A Pattern of Lawsuits and Broken Agreements
Residents Sandra Barnes and Anthony Bright filed a lawsuit in June 2025 over security, sanitation, and broken infrastructure, marking at least the third tenant lawsuit against IHA since 2023, according to Mirror Indy. In August 2025, the Indiana Attorney General's office asked a court to intervene after discovering the property management contractor had stopped staffing Lugar Tower in violation of a court-ordered compliance agreement, WFYI reported at the time.
In February 2026, Indiana Deputy Attorney General Chase Haller presented Lugar Tower as a case study to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, detailing the building's prolonged maintenance, safety, and operational failures for federal lawmakers. IHA's troubles extend beyond this one tower — the agency has also moved to sell other distressed properties, including Laurelwood Apartments, following squatter break-ins and a structural fire there.
For now, Lugar Tower's elderly and disabled residents are left waiting to see whether a court-ordered deadline succeeds where lawsuits, hearings, and millions in federal receivership funds have so far fallen short.
