International Towers in downtown Youngstown

YOUNGSTOWN — Several city departments, including the health department and code enforcement, have been providing assistance to residents of the International Towers high-rise apartment building downtown since they learned of problems with the building’s air conditioning system June 21, city officials said.

Several residents, however, said the problem has worsened the health conditions of some residents.

City spokesman Andy Resnick said Tuesday the building’s management was trying to get a replacement part to get the air conditioning running again. The part was expected to be available last week. He said the city Code Enforcement Department also was distributing water to residents and “monitoring the property management and contractor to get this done.”

Erin Bishop, Youngstown health commissioner, said Wednesday the city’s Code Enforcement Department has gone to the building every day to check on people after city officials learned of the issue June 21.

The next day, the Health Department and Eugenia Atkinson Recreation Center teamed up to make the recreation center on Otis Street on the North Side available to International Towers residents as a cooling station. No one from International Towers used it, she said.

The Youngstown Parks and Recreation Department and Code Enforcement took water to the Towers and “made sure everyone was OK,” Bishop said.

The cooler weather that began earlier this week has helped the situation, she noted.

“It definitely was a concern,” she said of the conditions residents were dealing with starting around June 21. “As soon as we found out, we immediately opened up that cooling station. Unfortunately it was on the weekend. On that Sunday, there were not lot a lot of places open,” she said.

Western Reserve Transit Authority buses do not run on Sundays, she said.

“The Community Kitchen isn’t open on Sundays. That was a big issue of it being on a weekend,” Bishop said.

She said the parks and recreation department was at the International Towers right after the city learned about the problem.

“We made sure signs were up telling them they were welcome at Eugenia Atkinson, encouraged them if they wanted to go swimming at the city pool, trying to help them and bringing them water to keep them cool,” she said.

She said the International Towers community room on the second floor has had air conditioning and that has been available to residents.

Bishop said Direction Home, the former Area Agency on Aging, also went to the International Towers to check on people because many of the residents are their clients. Direction Home provided some window air conditioners, she said. “We care about our residents,” Bishop said.

When asked whether she believed residents were experiencing illness severe enough to require hospitalization because of the heat in the building, Bishop said she was not personally involved enough at the building to know.

Bishop said she believes building management was still trying to obtain the parts to get the air conditioning working again, but she had not heard as of Wednesday whether the repairs had been made.

RESIDENTS’ CONCERNS

Michael Mcallister, who lives on the 13th floor and has lived there about four years, said Tuesday he has passed out from the heat in the building. He and resident Cheryl Wolfe said Mcallister also has had seizures because of the heat.

Mcallister said he needs air conditioning because of his medical conditions.

“With my asthma, I could pass out in the middle of the floor, and no one would find me unless they knock on the door, meaning I could just be there five days, out of it and no one knows,” Mcallister said.

Wolfe, who has lived in International Towers five years, is a “floor captain,” she said, meaning she keeps an eye on the residents on the third floor where she lives and has responsibilities in case of a fire, for instance.

“If I can’t get a hold of somebody, I start getting a little bit upset,” she said. “I have nice people on my floor. We’re a quiet floor.”

She also keeps an eye on others, including Mcallister and resident Melvin Beachman, who live on other floors. Mcallister said he, Wolfe and Beachman are friends, and they keep an eye on one another.

Mcallister said it’s not uncommon for residents to sleep in the air-conditioned entryway on the first floor at night because their room is too hot to sleep in. “All day long, you see people just resting in that room,” he said.

Donations of ice and water have been made available in the community room, Mcallister and Wolfe said.

Building management works on the first and second floors, Wolfe said. Though she does not need air conditioning as much as many others, Wolfe said the air conditioning in her apartment has not worked for about 2 1/2 years.

Residents were not in the building for several months last summer after the explosion of the Realty Tower next door, she noted.

Wolfe and Mcallister said they believe the 15th floor of the International Towers has central air conditioning and at least a couple of people on the seventh floor have central air conditioning.

“Why it is working there and not other places? I don’t know,” Wolfe said.

Some people have window air conditioners, Wolfe and Mcallister said. At least some of the residents with window air conditioners had to pay for them, Wolfe said.

An attempt to talk to management about the issues was not successful.

“There have been a lot of people here who have gone to the hospital,” Wolfe said of recent weeks when temperatures spiked into the 90s.

“We have people with asthma. We have people on oxygen,” she said. “I have a breathing machine,” Mcallister said. “I get breathing treatments every day.”

“We have people with seizures. The heat just literally gets to them,” Wolfe said.

Mcallister said there were residents who considered not paying their rent this month “because you figure last month, we paid the rent and it was like being in hell. Why did I have to pay this month to live in this?” he said, referring to the heat.

Wolfe said some people put their rent in escrow, and some people filed a complaint with a fair housing agency.

Mcallister said it may be legal not to provide air conditioning in apartment buildings in Ohio, but he thinks that if management knows he has breathing issues that are worsened by high temperatures, they could make sure he is not on the 13th floor.

He and Mcallister said the temperatures are higher on the upper floors.

“Last week, it was left and right. They were taking so many heart attack people out of here, man. They were taking so many passed out people all day,” Mcallister said. “They were losing it.”

Wolfe agreed that last week was bad for illnesses.

“I would say the last two weeks were the worst,” Wolfe said. In many instances, ambulance personnel came into the building and treated people but did not take them to the hospital, she said.

Wolfe has a friend who was coming home from the hospital Tuesday. “And they are saying the heat is what caused her to have the health (issues), combined with she has COPD, too. She ended up getting three blood clots in her heart,” Wolfe said.

That person was taken by ambulance from the building about a week earlier, Wolfe said. “Her doctors would not release her until they knew for sure that she had air conditioning in her apartment,” Wolfe said. Her family made sure she had air conditioning to return to, Wolfe said.

Mcallister said he is aware of a man about 80 years old who has been taken from the building twice in the previous five days. Wolfe said his family took him home one of those times.

“If management knows we are having this heat wave, the news is talking about the heat wave,” Wolfe said. “You have people in the building who can’t breathe, on oxygen. They are susceptible to seizures. Why couldn’t you provide air conditioners with the stipulation that you have to have one of these medical reasons to help alleviate the problems in the building?” Wolfe said.

Beachman said his earliest recollection of trouble with the central air conditioning was in February, but the issue became more serious this summer.

He said he cannot say exactly how hot it has been in his room, but he knows there have been days in which the temperature outside was close to 80. He would go outside and then return to his apartment, and the temperature inside was just as high as the outside temperature.

“For a lot of people, it’s hard to go to sleep,” Beachman said. He said you expect the temperature to drop at night, but a lot of times, the temperature remained high all night.

He said if he tries to use the controls on his thermostat in his apartment, nothing happens. There is no change in the temperature and no mechanical sound such as a fan going on or off.

When the air conditioning on the first floor, where building management works, did not work, “they got it fixed,” Beachman said.

He said residents don’t spend a lot of time in the air-conditioned community room on the second floor.

“We go somewhere else to be cool. We don’t stay in the building that much because there’s hardly anything to do inside the building. We will go outside or go in the back or we go somewhere where we can get cool drinks and just stay cool with everybody else,” he said.

More people would spend time in their rooms if they could. “But the heat is just like ‘Wow,'” he said. “It’s unpleasant during morning times,” and gets worse during the day, he said.

He said it’s been difficult to get the residents of the building to stick together and sign a petition to get something done. “Oh, no, I don’t want to be involved” is what a lot of people will say, Beachman said. “We turn around and get into a fight with each other,” he said.

INTERNATIONAL TOWERS WEBSITE

According to the International Towers website, the building has one-bedroom apartment homes for people 62 and over or who have a disability.

It calls itself an “income-based affordable housing opportunity.”

It has a community room, courtyard and a Western Reserve Transit Authority bus stop at the front door.

A community service coordinator is available to assist residents.

It is a pet-friendly facility, the website states.