Brooklyn Tenants Sue Urban American Over Unsafe, Unlawful Conditions

June 7, 2012, Brooklyn, NY—Residents of 665 New York
Avenue gathered today to announce a lawsuit against their landlord for failing
to make necessary repairs, resulting in unsafe, unsanitary, and uninhabitable
apartments. South Brooklyn Legal Services (SBLS, a program of Legal Services
NYC) filed the suit on behalf of 21 rent-stabilized tenants in an effort to
compel the landlord, Urban American Management, to take responsibility for the dilapidated
property.

View coverage here: NY1, News 12

Most of the tenants named in the lawsuit are long-time
residents of the building, and all of them pay rent every month.  Even so,
under the ownership of Urban American, they have suffered countless unsanitary
and dangerous conditions in their apartments and in the public spaces of the
building. The New York City Housing Preservation Department currently lists 52
open violations at the property, including four C (“immediately hazardous”)
violations.

Exterior doors as well as front doors to many apartments
have broken locks. Paint and plaster crumbles from the walls, mold and mildew
spread unchecked, and roaches and other vermin run rampant. In a fourth floor
apartment, a gaping hole remains where an air conditioner once was. On the seventh
floor, a senior citizen is essentially stranded in her home numerous days out
of each month when the elevator breaks down.

Thurston Williams has lived in his apartment for 30 years
and is the president of the building’s Tenant Association. “Since Urban
American took over ownership of this building, we have lived with conditions
that threaten our health and safety,” he said. “For example, rain comes into
the apartments through unsealed windows and radiators. Waterbugs and rodents
come in through vents and cracks. Many tenants have waited years, even decades,
to have their apartments painted. None of the bells are working on the
apartment doors. And when we call for emergency repair services, no one returns
the call. These are just a few of the problems we are having.”

“We are organizing in seven Urban American developments
throughout the city and in all of them, we see bad conditions,” said Katie
Goldstein of Tenants & Neighbors, which has been working with the Tenant
Association in an effort to get the conditions fixed. “The tenants at 665 New
York Avenue have come together in a unified response to correct these repairs
and services through a collective court case. These long-term rent-stabilized
residents of Flatbush deserve better treatment.”

“These tenants have asked Urban American again and again to
make repairs as required under their leases and by the law but Urban American
has not,” said Hans Wetzel, a volunteer attorney at SBLS.  “By bringing
this lawsuit, the tenants seek only to force Urban American to make the repairs
they are already obligated to perform— repairs that a conscientious landlord
would have made without being forced to by the courts.”

###