Military Mom Faces Homelessness After 2 Year Battle With Landlord

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A military mom who said she is being illegally evicted from her rent-controlled apartment is terrified her son will return from active duty and have no place to live.

“Don’t let my son come home to be homeless,” begged Barbara Commissiong, 51, during a protest outside her Bed-Stuy apartment building on Monday.

“He is fighting for us,” Commissiong added. “Are you going to disregard him like a paper plate?"

Commissiong has spent the past two years battling with Shinda Management Corp. — the company that runs the Willoughby Courtyard apartments at 300 Vernon Ave. — over her right to remain in her late father’s rent-controlled apartment, she said.

Thomas “Rabbit” Mack, Commissiong’s father, tried to add his daughter’s name to the lease when she first moved back into her childhood home in 2012, but his requests were not processed, she said.

When Mack died in January 2016, Commissiong asked again to be added to the lease, but the management company refused to provide her with a lease or accept the rent checks she repeatedly tried to give them, she said.

“I wanted to pay the rent, I tried to give them rent,” said Commissiong, who keeps a stack of receipts from cashier checks, made out to the management company, on her dining room table. “They would not take it.”

Commissiong believed she had a right to her father’s home because it was protected under NYC Rent Guidelines Board regulations for rent-controlled apartments, which stipulate that any family member who lived in the apartment for the two years preceding the leaseholder’s death can claim succession rights.

So in April of 2016, Commissiong sent Shinda the necessary proof that she was related to her dad and had lived with him in the apartment, she said.

Instead of granting her a new lease, the company served Commissiong with orders to vacate and twice took her to Brooklyn civil court, where they argued that because the rent was subsidized by Section 8, Commissiong could not apply for a succession rights.

The first judge sided with Commissiong, but when Shinda’s attorneys refiled their claims and Commissiong’s lawyer failed to appear in court, Commissiong was told she had to leave, she said.

Shinda served Commissiong with an eviction notice in November and a bill for $27,366.44 in unpaid rent and legal fees on Dec. 1.

“They’re sending me into a tailspin,” said Commissiong, a physician's assistant afraid she’ll lose her job without a place to live in Brooklyn. “We could end up in a shelter.”

In her final attempt to fight, Commissiong and activists from Struggle Brooklyn rallied outside Willoughby Courtyard on Monday to speak out against Shinda, a company that has repeatedly made headlines for its poor treatment of tenants and employees.

Residents of 305 Decatur St. reported freezing temperatures in their homes when Shinda refused to fix the heaters in January 2014, according to reports.

The reports also said Fulton Plaza Park building workers who unionized were harassed by Shinda and eventually fired in 2015, and residents of 477 Gates Ave. were unable to get letters and packages for months in 2008 when Shinda failed to fix a broken mailbox.

“Everybody knows about Shinda and their dirty tricks,” said Struggle Brooklyn activist Nina Rai.

Commissiong stood outside her apartment building clutching a picture of her son — a Marine posted in North Carolina who is now “worried sick” about what will happen to his mother — a sign and a megaphone.

“I’m going to keep fighting,” she said.

Then Commissiong went upstairs and into her fifth-floor apartment, now cramped with stacks of packed boxes, where her 16-year-old daughter Serena was waiting.

“Lock the door,” she told Serena. “The Marshals could come at any point.”

Shinda Management Corp. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Photos by Kathleen Culliton