Mayfair Hotel's 'Inside Safe' residents demand answers at townhall

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With all three elevators for residents broken at the Mayfair Hotel — where unhoused participants of Mayor Karen Bass's Inside Safe program are sheltered — officials on Monday, Sept. 8, said they were trying to resolve this issue, including by operating one elevator manually.

The LA Reporter confirmed this was happening after residents first shared the development with the publication on Saturday, Sept. 6. One resident who had said they were unable to leave their room previously said they were able to go to a dental appointment on Monday.

Over the weekend, Samson Tafolo, a resident and participant of the Inside Safe program, and others reported that it appeared residents were allowed to take that elevator up, but they couldn’t take it down. Tafolo and others also said it appeared that a security guard would be in the elevator car, with another worker pressing a button inside the elevator. It also appeared they were limiting the number of occupants who could ride in the car at one time.

Courtney Harris, a representative for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, or HACLA, on Monday, confirmed that “in an effort to come up with an immediate solution, we are currently operating one elevator manually using an elevator operator.”

Harris, writing on behalf of HACLA’s staff, said they were able to operate the elevator manually because “the issue with this elevator is around the car's electronic system; therefore, we are able to override and operate it manually.”

There have been reports that flooding occurred recently on one of the floors, which may have damaged at least one of the elevators. The LA Reporter is still working to get more information and confirmation on this.

That “immediate solution” of operating one of the elevators manually also appears to have been short-lived. By Tuesday, Sept. 9, the elevator that was being operated manually — which Tafolo referred to as “elevator 2” — was no longer working. Instead, another elevator — known as “elevator 3” — was operational again. The LA Reporter reached out to HACLA to get more information on this, and has not yet received a response.

Amid the ever-changing condition of the elevators at the Mayfair Hotel, a townhall was also held on Monday, Sept. 8, in which participants of Inside Safe tried to get answers about the status of the elevators.

Tafolo recounted what happened at the town hall to The LA Reporter outside the Mayfair Hotel, saying he couldn’t get clear answers on what was being done to modernize the aging elevators at the building, and whether the facility was compliant with the American Disabilities Act.

Tafolo said the meeting was well-attended compared to the monthly townhalls, with around 20 people present. Tafolo said the monthly meetings aren’t usually advertised with flyers, while this one was. Tafolo also observed that neither the mayor, nor any of her staff, appeared to be present at this “special town hall.”

“This is her [Karen Bass’s] program, this is their [the mayor’s office’s] responsibility,” Tafolo said. “They have to take accountability as well.”

He said the the need to address the elevators and other issues at the Mayfair Hotel isn’t something that can be delayed. But it does not feel like the mayor has made her presence known in addressing the issue.

“I don’t know what they [the mayor’s office] can do,” he said. “Can she do something? When did they catch wind of this? How long have they been on this, if they even are?”

The LA Reporter reached out to the Mayor’s Office last week and this morning to get some comment on the elevators. There has not yet been any response on this matter from Bass’s office. The LA Reporter hopes to update the story if a response is received later.

Many residents of the 15-story hotel — 14 floors above ground, and one floor below ground — have had to walk up and down several flights of stairs, after all three elevators were down starting about two weeks ago. There have been issues reported with the elevators for months, with resident reporting that at least two were usually down at a time. Some of those residents are elderly and disabled, and say they have been taking 45 minutes to over an hour to get back to their rooms, as reported last Friday, Sept. 5 in last week’s issue of The LA Reporter newsletter.

Some have also reported that residents have been sleeping in the lobby because of the difficulty in getting up to their rooms, and that some residents were finding it more convenient to take showers at other facilities, instead of in their own rooms. The LA Reporter last week attempted to go into the Mayfair Hotel, but was stopped and told they were not allowed to be inside the building.

The LA Reporter initially learned of the Mayfair Hotel elevators being broken through a social media post by Adam Smith, an organizer with Los Angeles Community Action Network, or LA CAN, which advocates for the civil and human rights of poor and houseless residents in Los Angeles.

Smith also raised alarms about the elevators during public comment at the Los Angeles City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee on Aug. 27 and Sept. 3. At the most recent meeting, the committee’s chair Nithya Raman, announced the elevators had been fixed, Smith was getting up to give public comment.

Raman said “we did get the elevators fixed.” Smith asked if she was certain, and Raman responded, “Yes, I am.”

It turned out the elevators were not fixed. Tafolo and others sent The LA Reporter a photo taken the same evening of the Sept. 3 meeting that showed orange cones and posts set up in front of three elevators at the hotel. They reported that they couldn’t take those elevators, which had been down that morning, before the meeting.

Tafolo said it makes him wonder “where the council is getting their information from. I don’t know who’s telling them that things are being addressed here.”

Smith said that many of the Inside Safe participants at the Mayfair Hotel are members of LA CAN, and that they had actually worked to get people rooms in the Mayfair Hotel. In an email to city officials the evening of the Sept. 3 meeting, Smith urged the city to provide clear answers on the obstacles the city faces in getting the elevators fixed, and the timeline of when they’d be fixed.

LA CAN and their members “would like clear information about when the elevators will be fixed,” Smith wrote. “We've heard a variety of different things, including that parts need to be fabricated and that this could take months. With an elevator company there today working, we hope that this isn't the case, but without clear information, we're unable to best advocate for our members at the Mayfair.” 

Smith also told The LA Reporter the Mayfair Hotel includes many houseless residents of Skid Row who have long had their needs ignored. Many people at the Mayfair Hotel had moved over from another hotel known as the LA Grand, which was also a shelter that was under an earlier program set up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic known as Project Roomkey.

The LA Reporter will continue to cover this, to confirm more information about what is taking place. In the meantime, we are incorporating documents obtained through research or inquiring with agencies, that may help readers better dig into the issue as well. Here are some items that may serve as helpful context: