SALT LAKE CITY — After FOX 13 reported on unreliable air conditioning at one publicly operated senior high-rise, residents at another complex reached out with the same concern.
Residents at Phillips Plaza say repeated cooling problems have left their apartments uncomfortably hot and made it difficult to sleep.
Robert Montoya has lived at Phillips Plaza since 2004. He keeps his curtains closed and runs a large fan but said that is not enough at night.
“I’ve been laying blankets of ice next to me,” Montoya said. “Then I got a big fan with a large motor in it, and it keeps me cool.”
What Montoya calls his “blankets of ice” are frozen cooling pads that he arranges around his body in bed.
“I have a good night’s sleep, but I couldn’t do it without the ice,” he said.
Another resident, Joseph Lucero, said people sometimes leave their apartments during the early morning hours because it is cooler outside.
“Everybody else is miserable. They can’t sleep,” Lucero said. “It’s like a hot box.”
Lucero said the central cooling system has worked intermittently for four or five months.
Phillips Plaza provides subsidized housing for older adults and is operated by the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City.
The Housing Authority said portable air-conditioning units were placed in every apartment while the building’s heating and cooling system is being upgraded. Lucero said the portable unit offered to him is too bulky for his small apartment, while Montoya said his unit does not cool his apartment adequately.
After calls and emails to the Housing Authority went unanswered, FOX 13 went to its main office and found a sign on the door stating it was closed for a meeting. FOX 13 later found Executive Director Daniel Nackerman in the Phillips Plaza parking lot and asked him about residents’ complaints.
Nackerman said the Housing Authority has spent the past several months upgrading the building’s heating and cooling system. He said most of that work is complete and that intermittent problems began Aug. 7.
“It is working. It’s just not working very well,” Nackerman said.
Nackerman said the agency considers the situation urgent and is looking at additional temporary cooling while it completes the system upgrade.
“We care a lot about our residents who live here,” Nackerman said. “We don’t want seniors to be uncomfortable.”
Nackerman did not provide a timeline for when the central air-conditioning system would be fully functional.
