Everett apartment’s elevator outage risks cancellation of subsidies

Published 1:30 am Saturday, August 8, 2026

EVERETT — An elevator at an Everett apartment complex has been shut off for so long that housing subsidies for tenants in the building are at risk of being cut off by a federal agency if the elevator isn’t repaired by the end of the month.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the agency offering the voucher subsidies through a local nonprofit housing provider, would only need to take that step if the elevator remained broken by a deadline of August 31, because the building wouldn’t be meeting federal housing quality standards. The building’s management has received parts needed to make the repair and has told residents it should be fixed within two to three weeks, according to a resident in the building.

But the extended closure of the elevator, now nearing its third straight month out of service, has made life difficult for residents living in the building.

KING 5 first reported on the broken elevator at the apartment building, the Artspace Everett Lofts in the city’s downtown.

Rachel Gordon, who has lived in the building for three years, said the elevator first broke down on May 20. For Gordon, who is a disabled veteran, needing to climb up and down four flights of stairs has been difficult and painful, she said.

“I have to lay down because I’m in enormous pain in my back and really exhausted from the stairs,” Gordon said.

Gordon said some other neighbors in the building have been stuck in their units for weeks with no way to get downstairs without an elevator.

“For other people, it’s been worse, way worse,” she said. “I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Gordon gets rent assistance in the building through what’s known as a HUD-VASH voucher, a type of housing assistance for veterans that provides partial payments for rental units. The federally funded program is administered locally by the nonprofit Housing Authority of Snohomish County. The nonprofit also administers other housing vouchers, including Housing Choice Vouchers, sometimes known as Section 8.

The nonprofit said that the federal agency funding the voucher programs at the building, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, would have to cease the subsidies to the building if the elevator is not repaired because federal housing standards require that building components — including elevators — are “functionally adequate, operable, and free of health and safety hazards.”

The halting of those subsidies is now an unlikely scenario, if the building management meets its timeline of making the elevator repairs in the next two to three weeks. But if HUD did cancel the subsidies, the Housing Authority of Snohomish County would help tenants with vouchers search for new housing options, wrote Pam Townsend, a spokesperson for the nonprofit.

“However, if they decide to remain in their current residence, they will forfeit their voucher and be responsible for paying the full rent,” Townsend wrote. “Tenants with no voucher will remain unaffected, outside of not being able to use the elevator.”

Indigo Real Estate, the company that manages the Artspace Everett Lofts, didn’t respond to emailed questions about the elevator outage.

The shortage of elevator parts is a problem affecting buildings nationwide, Townsend wrote. Broken elevators in apartment buildings are not an uncommon occurrence.

In fact, you only need to look next door — literally — to find another one. The elevator at the Monte Cristo apartments, an affordable housing building directly to the south of the Artspace apartments on the same block of Hoyt Avenue, has been broken since July 23, according to Catholic Community Services, the nonprofit that manages the building.

That outage has also made it a struggle for residents with mobility issues to get in and out of their homes, said James Wols, a resident there.

“Nobody can get downstairs if they’re disabled and they live on the fifth floor,” Wols said. “They can’t get downstairs to the street.”

The elevator broke down due to a sagging chain cable, the nonprofit wrote in an email. It is expected to be fixed within the next two to three weeks, according to a notice the nonprofit posted in the building. Catholic Community Services wrote in an email that the repairs will cost from $20,000 to $30,000.

It’s difficult to maintain older elevators because parts for the machines are often discontinued over time, the nonprofit wrote, making it hard to find replacement components.

“The inability to obtain these parts can lead to costly elevator modernization projects,” it wrote.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.