Residents stuck without air conditioning at Central West End public housing complex

ST. LOUIS – Many St. Louisans have welcomed the recent warmup with open arms, but the warm temperatures drew others outside for a very different reason Monday.

Some Central West End residents have been stuck without air conditioning these past two warm, mid-April days. We stopped by and noticed residents standing outside the building in the shade to get some fresh air and beat the heat.

The West Pine Apartments are a public housing complex run by the St. Louis Housing Authority, located at West Pine Boulevard and North Tayler Avenue.

Eric Smallwood has lived there for nearly five years.

“Oh, it makes you want to pass out. Makes you feel like you’re going to faint,” Smallwood said.

Yolanda McDowell agrees.

“I’m standing outside because, currently, we don’t have any air in our building,” she said.

McDowell said she contacted FOX 2 out of desperation. There are many residents living in the 99-unit complex run by St. Louis Housing Authority, including some elderly people and people with disabilities. Residents expressed concern for those who have a hard time leaving the building when things like this happen.

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McDowell said she doesn’t feel the housing authority is acting quickly enough to resolve the matter.

“We’ve been calling numbers. We’ve been calling emergency maintenance,” she explained. “Clearly, something is not working properly.”

Smallwood took us inside the 10-story complex and up to his unit on the ninth floor.

“It’s about 100 degrees in the building. I mean, I was sitting in my apartment, and I was sweating bullets,” Smallwood said.

“There’s no air coming out,” Smallwood said while pointing to his vent. “There’s none.”

Val Joyner, the director of communications for St. Louis Housing Authority, provided the following statement to FOX 2:

“As you may have seen while on site, our maintenance technicians are working on the issue now. Additionally, SLHA’s Resident Initiatives Department is also on-site distributing water and other helpful resources. We will distribute fans this evening to keep residents cool until the issue is resolved, which we anticipate will be soon.”

The Housing Authority said it is working on the problem. But for now, the warm wait drags on.

“Now, with you all out, we finally got somebody here,” McDowell said. “The air is still not on yet.”

Smallwood said he doesn’t feel the people in the complex are being treated fairly.

“Just because we’re on low-income doesn’t mean anything. We should get treated just like everybody else in the community,” he said.

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