An elevator in Building 2 at Charles F. Greene Homes in Bridgeport has been out of service for four consecutive weeks, and upper-floor tenants say the breakdown has upended their daily lives. Residents with limited mobility describe being confined to their apartments, while others are forced to navigate six flights of stairs just to come and go. Frustrated tenants are now demanding answers about when the elevator will work again.
As reported by News12, residents say management has failed to act swiftly to resolve the outage. Jillian Baldwin, executive director of the Bridgeport Housing Authority, said the agency is working to resolve the problem and is awaiting replacement elevator parts, according to the same report. Baldwin also said the authority is planning a broader redevelopment of the site, per that account.
A Known Problem at an Aging Complex
Greene Homes is a five-building, seven-story, 270-unit public housing development, according to a report from CT Post, located at 150 Highland Ave., per Park City Communities. Elevator breakdowns are a recurring problem there, with causes ranging from blown bearings to vandalism and age-related wear, CT Post reported in July. Park City Communities has said replacement parts for the aging elevators often must be manufactured rather than pulled from a vendor's shelf, and the agency has since switched elevator firms to one with a larger inventory of older parts.
This is not the first extended outage at the complex. An earlier breakdown this year began with service issues on March 25 and escalated to a full outage on March 27, according to Baldwin, as reported by CT Post. That time, the vendor, Champion Elevator, completed an assessment and ordered new parts just a few days later, on March 30. In a separate incident, the Bridgeport Housing Authority attributed chronic outages at Greene Homes to vandals urinating repeatedly over time into elevator control panels, according to a News12 report.
Residents Describe Being Stuck at Home
During an earlier outage this year, one resident told CT Post the elevator in her building goes down at least twice a month. Another resident said she was confined to her house because she is disabled and climbing six flights of stairs is, in her words, “super hard.” Those same mobility challenges are now echoed by tenants dealing with the current monthlong outage in Building 2.
Housing officials have previously said they are deploying all available resources to get elevators fixed as quickly as possible, according to News12. Greene Homes has also been associated with reported flooding and crime issues, officials have said, according to a separate News12 report on the complex's broader challenges.
Redevelopment Plans Face Federal Funding Hurdles
The outage comes as Bridgeport pursues a long-term overhaul of the aging complex. The city, Park City Communities and local stakeholders completed a planning process in January and submitted a Transportation Plan to HUD for approval, per CT Post. The goal, according to CT Public, is to develop healthy, energy-efficient homes while preserving existing housing and creating new units.
But cuts to federal funding have disrupted the Greene Homes replacement effort, CT Post reported in July. Park City Communities has invested more than $42 million in capital improvements since 2022, including elevators, according to the CT Mirror, and Greene Homes' HUD inspection score rose from 45 to 85 over that period. Still, residents in Building 2 say those investments haven't stopped the elevator from failing again, leaving them to demand faster answers from the agency responsible for keeping them moving.
