JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As the First Alert Weather team tracks bitter cold temperatures across northeast Florida, multiple people living at a senior living center in Jacksonville say they\u2019re getting through it without any heat.<\/p>\n
Dixie Smith is one of them. She told us she has lived at the Riverton Tower Senior Center for the last five years and has always had a struggle to stay warm, especially in the winter months.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty ridiculous, it hasn\u2019t been good,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Smith is a stroke survivor living on the ninth floor of the building, which we learned is more than 60 years old. Smith also pointed out a buildup of mold along the ceiling of her apartment that she says has been reported multiple times, but never fully removed.<\/p>\n
We learned that the building, located on Arlington Expressway at the east end of the Mathews Bridge, failed a state inspection in September during a routine check of the elevator. It\u2019s a concern for Smith\u2019s daughter, Heather Clarke, given her health history.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe could have another stroke at any time,\u201d said Clarke, \u201cif the elevators are broken and EMTs had to come up nine flights of stairs, that\u2019s life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n
The elevator\u2019s malfunction is a concern that Thomas Kelly also brought to us. He\u2019s a cancer survivor living on the 12th floor of the building and uses a cane to walk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m terrified of the elevators, and if you\u2019ve ever toted groceries 12 flights of stairs, it\u2019s pretty hard on an old fella,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Kelly told us he has spent the last four weeks without heat. He said he has had to resort to turning on his oven and opening its door to heat up the apartment, all while occasionally losing access to hot water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t get warm no matter what I do,\u201d Kelly said, \u201cit\u2019s always cold in there. You can\u2019t get a shower when it\u2019s this cold, when it\u2019s 55 degrees in your apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Riverton Tower is owned by a Jacksonville-based nonprofit developer called Ability Housing.<\/a> We reached out to Ability Housing to respond to the building\u2019s heating concerns and were told that Riverton Tower\u2019s HVAC system was installed by the previous owner of the building. Ability Housing said it hasn\u2019t been able to easily repair the heating system, since they didn\u2019t install it, and that they are currently working to either fix or replace it. Ability Housing sent us this statement:<\/p>\n \u201cResident safety is our top priority. All residents of Riverton Tower have been provided with portable heating towers at no charge to ensure their warmth and comfort while the main heating system is assessed. Our on-site property management team and maintenance technician are available to assist any residents in need of additional heating support until the situation is resolved, including delivery and installation of extra heating towers if needed.\u201d<\/p>\n Ability Housing said it could not provide a timeline of repairs for Riverton Tower\u2019s HVAC system at this time, but also shared that it would look into concerns regarding the building\u2019s elevator.<\/p>\n Clarke and her mom are calling on the building\u2019s staff to step up.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get somebody out to fix it,\u201d Clarke said, \u201cthese are our senior citizens, and they deserve to be warm.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 As the First Alert Weather team tracks bitter cold temperatures across northeast Florida, multiple people…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":481815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[218188,5229,2866,77078,46583,61251,3188,723,218186,218184,46582,7310,425,197504,50,218185,218183,218187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-481814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-ability_housing","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-clark","11":"tag-dixie","12":"tag-finn","13":"tag-finn_carlin","14":"tag-fl","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-heather","17":"tag-heather_clark","18":"tag-jack_finn_carlin","19":"tag-jacksonville","20":"tag-local","21":"tag-matthews_bridge","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-riverton_tower","24":"tag-riverton_tower_senior_center","25":"tag-thomas_kelly","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-of-america","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115812862926361164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}