More than 200 residents live at Barton Tower in downtown Indianapolis, and right now only one elevator works. Residents at the senior and disabled housing high-rise say they have been stuck waiting for repairs to elevators, air conditioning and safety hazards for months, with one man requiring hospital treatment after his nose began bleeding heavily during the ordeal.
The building at 555 Massachusetts Avenue was completed in 1967 as Indianapolis's first public housing project designed specifically for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, according to Historic Indianapolis. Nearly six decades later, residents of Barton Tower and its companion Barton Annex say the building is failing them in basic ways. As Fox 59 reports, resident Deborah Morris has gone without air conditioning since May, and contractors have told her that her unit's cooling system needs to be replaced entirely.
Jerry Harrison told the outlet he's also been without air conditioning for the entire summer. During the ordeal, his nose began bleeding heavily enough that he needed an ambulance and hospital treatment, per the same report. Resident Cinderella Simpkins said she got stuck inside the Barton Tower elevator over the recent holiday weekend, and she voiced concern both about elevator safety and about the Indianapolis Housing Agency continuing to collect monthly rent while conditions remain unresolved.
Repeated Elevator Failures Draw Fire Department Response
The scope of the elevator problem is documented in emergency response data cited by the station: the Indianapolis Fire Department responded to Barton Tower for non-working elevators 16 times so far in 2026, compared to eight responses for the same issue in 2025. Resident Rochelle Fox described the building's television room as having a large gash in the ceiling with ongoing water intrusion, and she said conditions at Barton Tower are extremely bad, the article notes.
Indiana law gives residents limited recourse. Under Indiana Code § 32-31-8-5, residential landlords are statutorily obligated to maintain electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and elevator systems in good and safe working condition, according to Justia Law. That same state statute prohibits tenants from withholding rent over maintenance failures, which leaves administrative complaints or health department action as the primary legal remedies available to residents like Simpkins.
Agency Says Fixes Are Coming, Points to Wider Portfolio Strain
IHA CEO Yvonda Bean said the agency takes residents' concerns seriously and that contractors are working to resolve the air-conditioning issue, per the Fox 59 report. Bean clarified that the cooling problem affects units running on a different system rather than the entire building, and the agency said it will fix the non-working elevator once replacement parts arrive. In the meantime, IHA has provided portable air-conditioning units to affected residents and set up a dedicated maintenance-reporting phone line at 317.215.0632, along with a QR code residents can use to submit complaints. Both Barton Tower and Barton Annex have assigned property managers available to field concerns, and the agency said it will continue monitoring air conditioning, elevator service and property management matters going forward.
Bean, who took over as CEO in February 2025, previously led public housing authority turnarounds out of federal receivership in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Columbia, South Carolina, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal. She stepped into the role nearly a year after federal officials stripped local leadership of independent control of IHA. Barton Tower and Barton Annex are two of six properties IHA still operates directly, after the agency condensed its portfolio in an effort to concentrate maintenance resources.
Federal Takeover Followed Years of Financial and Operational Turmoil
HUD and the City of Indianapolis took joint control of IHA in 2024, a move that followed years of financial instability and maintenance backlogs across the agency's properties. When the joint agreement was executed that April, federal officials reported that roughly 1,500 of the agency's 9,000 available housing vouchers were sitting unused while waitlists stalled, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In January, IHA finalized the sale of seven housing developments, including Laurelwood Apartments and 16 Park, to Seattle-based Vitus Development LLC, retaining ownership of the underlying land while shedding day-to-day management responsibilities, as reported by Mirror Indy.
Financial strain has followed IHA even as it downsizes. In September 2025, utility provider Citizens Energy Group filed a civil lawsuit against the agency claiming more than $200,000 in unpaid utility bills across agency-managed properties, according to Mirror Indy. That financial instability has repeatedly delayed contractor payments and emergency maintenance response times across the portfolio.
A Pattern Playing Out at Another IHA Senior Tower
Barton Tower is not the only IHA senior high-rise under scrutiny this year. Hoodline previously reported that the Marion County seniors sweltered at Lugar Tower in August, when the Marion County Public Health Department ordered IHA to repair broken air conditioning there or face civil penalties after indoor temperatures reached 91 degrees across seven open health code violations. In February, the Indiana Attorney General's office disclosed a compliance agreement covering Lugar Tower that mandates 48-hour incident reporting and allows up to 12 unannounced state inspections per year.
The scrutiny has reached Washington. Indiana Deputy Attorney General Chase Haller testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in February, using IHA properties as a case study in rental safety and public housing oversight failures. In that testimony, state officials argued that structural deficiencies in public housing oversight leave low-income tenants stranded in unsafe living conditions. To help fill the gap on-site, Indianapolis EMS and the Marion County Public Health Department launched a mobile health clinic stationed at Barton Annex last October, offering primary medical care to senior and disabled residents who may struggle to travel off-site when elevators fail.
