Residents of Harlem Building Face Eviction

Special to U.F. by Jonsi Smith

When a 42-year-old single mother moved to Harlem from a southern state last year, she carefully scrutinized more than a dozen affordable vacant apartments in an area near her new job. Other than affordability, she was searching for a clean, safe place to raise her son, a 10th grade honor student.

She finally found what she felt was the ideal two-bedroom apartment in a quiet corner building located at 204 W. 121st Street. Managed by the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church of North and South America, the 10-unit building served as the church diocese and provided housing for several of its members and other non-affiliated tenants. The church held services in a street level space on the east side of the building on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.

“For six months, I paid my rent on time, everything ran smoothly and our little family settled into a peaceful, comfortable routine in our new home in the big city,” said the tenant, who requested anonymity.

One afternoon last August, she received a frantic telephone call from her son, who told her a man who said he was a city marshal had knocked on the door of each apartment and told everyone they were being evicted. He also chained and padlocked the doors to the church sanctuary.

“It was chaos,” said another tenant, a 52-year-old disabled man who also said he had never missed paying a month’s rent. “None of us knew what was going on. The marshal gave us no reason for the eviction.”

In the excitement that followed, the man said, the church’s 89-year-old Senior Grand Candace Abbess

was injured.

“The marshal picked me up and I fell in the concrete stairwell, hit my head and had to be rushed to a hospital emergency room,” said Bishop Queen Mother Perousia P.S. Jordan, a frail but strong-spirited blind tenant of the building.

District 9 Council Member Inez E. Dickens has launched a campaign to help the tenants. On Monday, she asked HPD to stay the eviction.

“The Council Member is concerned about the fate of all of the tenants in the building, whether they are

paying or non-paid because she does not want anyone to be evicted, especially if they have no place to go,” said Dickens’ special assistant Lynette Velasco. “This is why she has asked HPD for a moratorium on all and any eviction proceedings as relates to this building so that this situation can be sorted out in a manner that will enable tenants to maintain their homes.
“If any or all of the tenants must move at some point, then this must be done in an organized manner where they will receive relocation assistance from HPD,” she said.

At press time, HPD officials were unavailable for comment.

The residents formed a tenants’ association and filed orders to show cause in housing court, where they

discovered the church owed delinquent lease payments to The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which owns the building. Attempts to elicit a response from a church representative were unsuccessful.

On Feb. 29, Judge Joseph E. Capella issued a Stipulation of Settlement disposing the tenants’ Order to Show Cause, waiving use and occupancy (rental payments) and staying the execution of the eviction warrant through July 31. Several members of the tenants association said their attorney told them they had no other recourse. Because of that, a few of the tenants signed the stipulation, which bound them to move by July 31.

“We didn’t know at the time that our lawyer could have filed papers to try to get rid of the warrant of

eviction,” said one of the tenants. “We believed him when he said that he had done everything he could do, so we started looking for another place to live.

“Nearly all of us have been really trying to find something affordable in Harlem,” said the tenant. “But there is absolutely nothing vacant in Harlem without a long waiting list that is available now. One of the tenants is a middle-aged disabled woman who is not on any kind of public assistance. Her grown children have been paying her rent. Even though she always paid her rent on time, no one will rent her an apartment because she has no regular or government source of income,” he said.

Adult Protective Services located an apartment nearby for Queen Mother Jordan. However, she s

aid she will not move until the matter is resolved.

“I will be the last person to leave the building,” said Mother Jordan. “All of these tenants are my children and I will not leave here until everyone has a place to live.”

Tenants’ rights advocate Ray Richardson said the subtenants should not be held responsible if the tenant (the church) did not forward the rent to HPD.

“In fact, they have the right to request that they become tenants, rather than subtenants, if they have been residents of the building for more than two years,” he said.

On Thursday, a spokesman for Queen Mother Jordan said she would appeal the case.

“The city never owned the building, nor did HPD ever take title to the deeds,” said her godson Garland Roberts, an activist engineer who often assists tenants facing eviction. “All the computer records and files regarding the building have disappeared. This is another case of HPD stealing people’s buildings.

“Queen Mother Jordan, although blind, is pro se moving today (Thursday) in appellant term, the next higher court, to overturn the illegal eviction process,” said Roberts.

In the meantime, a spokesperson for the tenants’ association said the group has recently located a private funding source to pay the church’s lease delinquency, which is reportedly more than $170,000.

Illustration by: Leo Garcia for the Indypendent!