Tenants of Bedford-Stuyvesant transitional housing facilities for former addicts, ex-convicts and the homeless are accusing the complex’s operator of harassment, despite a court order issued to protect them, the New York Daily News reported.
As part of an ongoing legal battle with operator Yury Baumblit in Brooklyn State Supreme Court, the tenants allege that the landlord threatened to evict all residents of 85 Kingston Avenue and tampered with the boiler so the heat was off for nearly a week over the holidays, the Daily News said. Baumblit is also accused of telling the residents to find other housing by mid-December or city marshals would evict everyone. When marshals failed to turn up, he threatened a late-December eviction instead.
“Everybody’s got to go; we’re closing the building down’ — that’s what he told us,” said resident John Best.
The ongoing legal battle is focused on alleged mistreatment of tenants on Kingston Avenue and at nine other similar facilities in Brooklyn and Queens owned by Baumblit. [NYDN]