Vagrants turn luxury building into homeless haven
Forget about borrowing a cup of sugar — can you spare a couple of bucks?
Working-class Bronx families thought they had landed the dream of affordable rents at a spanking-new apartment complex — until busloads of rowdy homeless people moved in and turned the building into a living nightmare.
“I feel like I’ve been scammed. They weren’t upfront to let us know what kind of building this was going to be,” said Omar Cooke, 38, who pays $962 for a one-bedroom apartment at 1802 Crotona Ave. in Crotona Park.
Months after the tenants signed their leases, the developer moved homeless families into 44 of the building’s 55 units. Now the rent-paying residents say they’re plagued by fights, threats and panhandling, and they fear for the safety of themselves and their children.
All visitors — including the regular tenants — have to be patted by security.
And when the shelter staff leave the building between 6 p.m. Friday night and 8 a.m. Monday, all hell breaks loose, Cooke says.
“On Friday when 6 o’clock comes, that’s when it’s a free-for-all in the building,” he said. “They treat it like it’s their own bathroom.”
Many of the homeless residents seem to be emotionally disturbed, tenants said.
“There are a lot of crazy people in here,” said Selenia Guzman, 30, a pharmacy technician who has a 5-year-old daughter and recently had a neighbor come panhandling for $10 at her door.
“I’m worried about my daughter. I don’t want her in this environment with all these crazy people here. The screaming. The fighting. The craziness. You open the garbage room and it’s a mess.”
Rent-paying mom C. Taylor, 35, says she first learned that the building was being converted into a shelter in 2015 — after she signed her lease — but was told it was just for a few months.
“It’s August 2017. They’re still here,” said Taylor, a mom of two young boys who claims she was assaulted by a homeless neighbor last year and had to be hospitalized.
After Taylor complained, her assailant was moved — to another unit.
The tenants decided to go public after reading in The Post that the same developer, the Stagg Group, performed a similar switcheroo at another new building at 5731 Broadway in Kingsbridge.
Landlords can fetch upwards of $3,000 a month per unit to house the homeless, far more than what other tenants pay.
Asked to comment, the developer issued a statement saying: “Stagg Group is committed to housing all New Yorkers. We believe homeless families should be integrated into communities as they transition to permanent and stable housing, and should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity.”
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