'the death of common sense'

So there is this book. It's entitled, "The Death of Common Sense." Appropriately so, for it touches upon ordinary circumstances that should work out. But as a result of this increasingly progressive trend of lack of common sense these days, these ordinary things become difficult, and some even down right impossible. Example: Mother Teresa, may her soul rest in peace, when she was alive & the Missionaries of Charity had this wonderful idea to build a homeless shelter in NYC. It would be a boarding house for those who have no where to go, a place to get a warm meal amidst the cold & heartless streets NYCity can possess, have their laundry done and be sent with a smile from the Missionaries. But this wasn't possible. A law in NYCity prevented this shelter from being built because the nuns couldn't fit the bill of an elevator. It did not matter that they would not be using the elevator, for they did not even believe in doing laundry by machine; they did everything by hand. It also did not matter that they had been saving up for this building for years, finally raising c. $5000 dollars to start the renovation. Why didn't any of this matter? Because the law said so.
I can understand why their needs to be an elevator in a lot of buildings, but mandating it so that the Missionaries of Charity cannot spread Christ's good work? There definitely seems something wrong with this.