Indianapolis Housing Agency sued by tenants over bad conditions

Six residents of Lugar Tower, the Indianapolis public housing apartment complex near Mass Ave, have filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court against the Indianapolis Housing Agency and the property manager, Bradley Company Management, alleging bad living conditions including lack of heat and air conditioning, lack of hot and cold water, human waste in a stairwell left uncleaned for months, and lack of security.

Lugar Tower provides subsidized housing for people who are older or have disabilities.

The complaint, filed in late April, alleges breach of lease, breach of warranty of habitability, and breach of covenant for quiet enjoyment — violations of Indiana laws intended to protect tenants from unsafe and poor living conditions. The tenants are asking the court to order the agency and Bradley Company to immediately and permanently remedy the safety and habitability issues at Lugar Tower, and seeks damages.

2022 IndyStar investigation: As Indy housing agency faces financial crisis, residents suffer the brunt of its neglect.

'It's been too long'

"I’m just tired of it," one of the residents, 61-year-old Sandra Barnes, told IndyStar. She has lived there since 2014 and said she participated in the lawsuit to speak up on behalf of all the building's residents. "It's been too long that we are living like this in this building."

The Indianapolis Housing Agency declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation, and directed IndyStar to its attorneys, who did not respond to a request for comment.

Bradley Company took over management of Lugar Tower from the agency in December after the agency said last year that it would transition to third-party property management as a way to cut costs.

The company's chief administrative officer and executive managing director of multifamily, Heather Turner, responded to an IndyStar request for comment by stating officials there share the concerns of the residents and took actions within the first 90 days to address the most significant safety and security concerns.

"These actions included limiting access to non-residents, restoring heat and hot water, and contracting security at the property," Turner wrote. "Our on-site team is currently working to address other outstanding issues, while working with the Indianapolis Housing Agency to finalize a long-term capital improvement plan to improve property conditions."

Fran Quigley, the attorney representing the tenants pro bono, said they are defending their rights guaranteed by Indiana law to live in a safe and clean environment. Attorneys from Indiana Legal Services, the largest Indiana provider of free civil legal assistance to eligible low-income people, are also representing the tenants.

"Over the course of several years, these residents have repeatedly asked for help from the Indianapolis Housing Agency and Bradley Company and have reached out to multiple government agencies," Quigley said. "But, every day, they still are enduring severe safety and health problems in the building."

The tenants said in the complaint that the front door to the apartment building was broken in December last year, and a lack of timely response from the housing agency and apartment manager led to tenants feeling unsafe when non-residents would come into the building. The tenants said the front door has been broken and repaired and broken again several times over the past six months.

According to the complaint, one of the tenants, Tonya Williams suffered a burglary on Feb. 18 by someone she believes is not a resident.

Another tenant, Lumpkins, suffered anxiety, the complaint said, after a non-resident stabbed a resident outside her 10th-floor apartment door, leaving huge amounts of blood.

The tenants also said human waste was left in the stairwell last December that had not been cleaned as of April 26.

More: Elderly, disabled, housing agency tenants have no AC. They demand city takes action.

They said elevators have been broken numerous times over the past year and not repaired in a timely way, leaving disabled residents trapped on upper floors.

As of April 25, the complaint said, the following conditions were still present in Lugar Towers: a significant amount of apparent human feces and urine in the stairwells, trash accumulated in the stairwells and some hallways, only one of the two elevators working and available, and non-residents regularly gaining access to the building.

The problems have gone on for a long time.

An IndyStar investigation in June 2022 found that residents at Lugar Tower and other Indianapolis Housing Agency properties have borne the brunt of the agency's financial troubles and deficit, which has led to severe understaffing of maintenance workers and thousands of open emergency work orders at the nine properties then managed by the agency.

During a heat wave last summer, IndyStar found that tenants at Barton Tower and Millikan on Mass, two of the agency's largest properties, had no working air conditioning.

Contact IndyStar reporter Ko Lyn Cheang at kcheang@indystar.com or 317-903-7071. Follow her on Twitter: @kolyn_cheang.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis Housing Agency sued by Lugar Tower tenants over conditions