Broken Elevator Frustrates Elderly South Beach Apartment Residents

MIAMI BEACH (CBS4) – A reportedly broken elevator at an apartment building on Miami Beach has left residents and elderly tenants stuck in their homes.

Karen Mills, 79, showed CBS4's Summer Knowles how she gets to and from her second floor apartment of the Barclay building located at 1940 Park Avenue.

Knowles watched as a 'young-at-heart' Mills chose to get onto the floor with gloves on her hands and slowly, one-by-one, inched her way up and down the steps.

She went to the effort of showing what she does sometimes a few times a day so that other people would understand what some residents in the building go through to get to and from their homes.

She carried her walking cane by her side and pulled it up and down the stairs with her.

It was a lengthy 21 steps that she maneuvered Sunday afternoon.

"This is usually where I take my break depending on how tired I am. The first few kill me, I don't have enough strength," Mills explained.

Despite suffering from severe arthritis, osteoporosis, and a spinal condition she said she is forced to muster up enough strength to make it home or to her part-time job.

Residents said the elevator hasn't been fully functioning for nearly 10 months, as first reported by CBS4 News partner The Miami Herald.

Mills was the only resident willing to show her face and speak publicly about the elevator issue.

She said she made the decision to come forward because she reached a point when during her many travels up and down the stairs that she became "fed up".

"It was a day when everything happened; it was just one thing on top of another."

Mills said her requests to the building's management and numerous agencies for elderly assistance haven't been acknowledged or brought results.

She doesn't want anything more, than to just have her building's elevator working again and as soon as possible.

"Have a little compassion for the people who live here.  It's not just me. Nobody should have to live like this," Mills said.

CBS4 News reporter, Summer Knowles reached out to the building's management about the elevator situation, but she has not heard back from them as of Sunday night.