After Brooklyn Nursing Home Controversy, Legal Aid Sues N.Y. Over Eviction Laws
Three of the last few residents at Prospect Park Residence in the largely vacant dining room. Image by indypendent.org
By Josh Nathan-Kazis June 1, 2017
After a landlord’s mass eviction at a heavily Jewish Brooklyn nursing home caused panic three years ago, the Legal Aid Society is suing the state’s Department of Health to keep it from happening again, the Daily News reported Thursday.
The suit stems from the 2014 effort to evict seniors from the Prospect Park Residence in Brooklyn. Advocates fought those evictions, effectively postponing them by three years before winning residents significant cash payouts.
Now, Legal Aid’s lawsuit seeks to force the Health Department to adopt new rules to help seniors when landlords seek to shut down nursing homes. The suit demands that the Health Department help seniors relocate when evicted from nursing homes regulated by the department, according to the Daily News.
The Health Department said in a statement to the paper that it had acted appropriately with regard to the evicted seniors. “As part of the department’s oversight of Prospect Park Residence, all federal and state laws pertaining to the operation of the facility and resident’s rights were followed,” the department said.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
