Help Crystal keep her power source for her wheelchair

For Urgent Attention of:
Crystals Housing Management Company, Somerville Alderman, Mayor Joe Curtatone, Somerville, MA Electrical, Health and Fire Inspectors, Somerville ADA Coordinator Carlene Campbell, State Rep. Timothy Toomey, Senator Anthony Galluccio, Senate President Therese Murray, Congressman Mike Capuano, Massachusetts Office on Disability (MOD), Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)


We are signing this petition because we feel that Crystal Evans has a medically-based need to keep her power cord from down the hall so she has access to functioning electricity for her medical equipment. On Friday November 13th, Crystal was notified that the power cord she depends on daily for charging her wheelchair will be removed Monday, November 16.

Over the past 23 months, her electrical problem in her house has now damaged 4 power wheelchairs, her respiratory equipment, DVRs, DVDs, cable and phone modems, routers, a printer, 3 hard drives and motherboards on her computer, cell phones, landline phones, PDA, refrigerators, and more. The damages to medical equipment and hospitalizations directly due to faulty medical equipment has cost her health insurance over $100,000 in the past year.

Her wheelchairs and other electronics ONLY seem to function properly when plugged into a power cord that has been running in her apartment from down the hallway (an outside circuit) since this summer. When electronics are plugged into her outlets within her house they malfunction, overheat, and fail to work as they are designed to.

Without a charged and functioning wheelchair Crystal cannot attend school or get to doctors appointments critical to her diagnosis of Mitochondrial Myopathy.

We are asking that you reconsider what is in her best interest medically, and that you allow her to keep the powercord as a reasonable accommodation or modification to her apartment for the use of charging her power wheelchair so she can continue to have functioning electricity on which to charge it in her house until her electrical problem is resolved or until she can find an affordable wheelchair-accessible apartment in her area.

Furthermore, we are asking that you do not stop investigating her electrical problem until the cause of the damages is located and repaired.