Heartbreak Strikes After Lift Breakdown
SERENA FERRARI
Chas Hambly, 46, has multiple sclerosis (MS), a lifelong condition that causes severe disability. He lives alone on the 9th floor of a high-rise block on Stonehouse Drive called Roosevelt Court. On 6 May, one of the two lifts responsible for the 16 floors at Roosevelt Court – the one which services the odd-numbered floors (1,3,5,7,9, etc.) – broke down and has been out of commission for twenty days. For nearly three weeks, Mr Hambly has been involuntarily housebound, unable to make it up or down the necessary flight of stairs to use a working lift.
For anyone, such circumstances would be unbearable, but for Chas, the timing could not have been worse. Chas’ father, who suffered from Cystic Fibrosis as well as a heart condition, “where his chest was pushing on his heart” passed away in his nursing home several days ago. Because of the lift breakdown, Chas was unable to be with his father at the time of his death.
Initially, Chas lived on the 16th floor, to which both lifts traveled, but when Chas’ father came to stay with him after his MS diagnosis, the two moved into a double bedroom flat on the 9th floor. For seven years, father and son cared for one another, cooking dinner and making up for lost time. “He came over from the Philippines. I hadn’t seen him since I was four and we just made up, we clicked.”
Despite not being around while he was growing up, Chas was very dedicated to his father, visiting him regularly in his nursing home three times a week before the lift broke down. Since then, Chas has managed to make it out of the building a few times – by people physically carrying him down the flight of stairs – and was able to see his father, but he had no idea that he would leave him so soon. “It was expected and unexpected. I thought he had longer.”
In addition to the emotional turmoil Chas finds himself in, he is also in need of physical support. When I visited Chas on 23 May, his food supplies had diminished and he struggled to move about his flat. A personal assistant has been provided through social services, but the lack of communication between him and the “lift people” has left him feeling abandoned.
Since the lift breakdown, Chas has received no updates and has been contacted only twice via the telecom system. When visiting, I noticed an A4 paper taped to the lift which stated that “the parts ordered have not all arrived” and that there was no definitive day when the engineer would be available, a significant though vague update that would have been missed altogether by Chas due to his limited mobility. “They know my predicament, they know I can’t get out [but they] never knocked on the door, never did anything. It’s like they’ve just put us to the back of the line.”
Roosevelt Court is managed by Optivo, a housing association that was responsible for 45,000 homes, before merging with Southern, another association responsible for an additional 32,000 residences. The merger was legally completed in December of last year, forming a single provider called Southern Housing, responsible for all 77,000 homes across London, the Southeast and Midlands. In an article published in Housing Today on 16 December 2022, Paul Hackett, previous Optivo boss and now chief executive of Southern Housing was quoted: “Residents will be at the heart of our services, and we’ll use our size to influence positive change in the areas where we operate.”
On Friday, 26 May, Chas visited his father’s body along with his sister to say his goodbyes. Coincidentally, on that same day, I received the following statement from Optivo:
“We can confirm the lift at Roosevelt Court has been fixed today (Friday 26 May) and is now back in service. There’s currently a global shortage of the parts we need to keep all the lifts working. Our contractors continue to do their best to find the right electrical components as quickly as possible to repair any broken lifts. We’re sorry for the impact the lift repair issues had on our residents at Roosevelt Court.”
But for Chas, the damage is irreparable. “They’ve left a big hole in my heart, and I can’t get that back. Nothing they do can bring that back.”
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