Real Estate Brooklyn Boro

Tenant controversy pits Maimonides Medical Center against Fifth Avenue Committee

March 6, 2024 Raanan Geberer
Maimonides Medical Center.
Maimonides Medical Center. Photo Jim Henderson/Wikimedia
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A long-running and complicated controversy is centering on tenants of several apartment buildings owned, or previously owned, by Maimonides Medical Center, and the hospital’s efforts to vacate some of the buildings.

Tenants have formed a tenants’ union that is fighting back in court. They have gained a powerful ally — the Fifth Avenue Committee, a community development and affordable housing organization that is active in Park Slope, Gowanus, Sunset Park, Red Hook and nearby areas. Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, was executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee from 1993 to 2003.

The hospital contends that the cost of maintaining and managing the buildings has increased, with building upgrades estimated at millions of dollars — not to mention the skyrocketing costs that all health care institutions face. In addition, according to a hospital spokesperson, the hospital pays $86,632 per month to cover rent increases and back rents. In 2023, hospital management decided it could no longer support the “housing program” in this age of increasing medical costs.

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There are 11 buildings in total. Four are still owned by Maimonides, while the hospital sold the remaining seven buildings to Iris Holdings, a company described by real estate publication The Real Deal as focusing “mainly on mid-market deals.”

The Real Deal and the Fifth Avenue Committee both identified the properties sold to Iris as being at 864 49th St., 983 46th St., 5001 10th Ave., 1016 50th St., and 902, 914 and 926 47th St. The Committee further identified the four buildings still owned by Maimonides as 950 49th St., 968 47th St., 964 49th St. and 974 47th St.

The hospital spokesperson said that Maimonides bought the properties more than 40 years ago to offer housing to its full-time employees. Over the years, they continued, “many tenants changed employment status but did not leave employee housing.”

A Fifth Avenue Committee spokesperson, on the other hand, said that to their knowledge, most of the tenants either work for the hospital, were laid off or retired — and didn’t leave the hospital to work for other employees. Typical tenants, they said, include nurses, nursing assistants, technicians, janitors and security personnel.

As far as the current status of the tenants, this is where it gets more complex. When Maimonides sold the seven buildings, it negotiated a “master lease” with the new owner to “ease the transition” to new housing. In effect, Maimonides is the tenant of record and the tenants sublet from the hospital.

The hospital further said that “the new owners raise the rent every year — we do not pass these costs to tenants, we subsidize those costs.”

The Fifth Avenue Committee spokesperson said the buildings were rent-stabilized before Maimonides bought them — but because Maimonides is a nonprofit, if it rents to its own employees, it is exempt from rent stabilization. Some of the retirees believe they should have been offered rent-stabilized leases since they no longer work for the hospital.

Now, the Fifth Avenue Committee added, more than 50 tenants are being sued in eviction proceedings because the hospital terminated their month-to-month leases.

The hospital spokesperson said Maimonides has gone out of its way to help tenants get new housing. “When Maimonides sold those buildings in 2018, tenants were notified even before the sale was final. During the pandemic, tenants were given an additional year. In the fall of 2022, Maimonides resumed the process and communicated with tenants that the buildings must be vacated,” the spokesperson said.

The hospital added that communications were made by email, regular and certified mail, as well as posted notices on every door. Tenants could make appointments at the Maimonides office, and the hospital was able to offer full-time current employees alternative housing, they added.

However, the Fifth Avenue Committee said that many others who went to the leasing office and asked for new apartments were refused. In two of the buildings that Maimonides still owns, they added, there are vacant apartments.

Allison Bobb, a tenant who worked as a patient care specialist for Maimonides for 17 years and is now retired, told the Eagle of her experiences. She moved to one of the buildings 12 years ago. Upkeep in the buildings, she said, was “always an issue,” including insect pests.

When the building was sold, she said, “they called us in a meeting and told us that they [Maimonides] had sold the buildings.” Tenants were told they could stay until the new owner took over. After her building was sold, she said, the drop-box where tenants had deposited their rent was sealed up and confiscated.

Later on, she said, “They started sending notices to everyone.” The 90-day notices would stop during legal action, but would resume afterward.

She called the office, but says she was told that they had no apartments available. Eventually, she said, she and some other tenants were offered Section 8 vouchers, and she accepted.

In the latest court decision as of this writing, dated Feb. 23 and provided to this writer by the Fifth Avenue Committee, the judge (Civil Court Judge Hannah Cohen) finds that the petitioner (Maimonides Medical Center) “has proven it leases the units pursuant to a master lease and that it operates the units by paying rent directly to the owner, responsible for repairs in the unit per the lease, and billing the respondents who have paid petitioner directly even after the building was sold …. Petitioner has proven it’s entitled to rent stabilization exemption.”

The Fifth Avenue Committee spokesperson added that as early as April, the tenants could receive actual eviction notices, “which give them two weeks before the marshals come to forcibly kick them out.”

“I don’t mind moving,” Bobb says, “but they need to give us more time to relocate. This is New York City. I worked through COVID and got sick. This is stressful.”


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