Flatbush Among Worst Neighborhoods For Eviction, New Data Shows

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — Flatbush was one of the worst Brooklyn neighborhoods for evictions in 2018, according to new data released Monday.

Hundreds of families were evicted in 2018 from Flatbush, where Brooklyn's top five worst evictors all own property, tenants rights activists from The RTCNYC Coalition and JustFix.nyc discovered.

The evictions — which can be seen on the groups' Worst Evictors NYC map launched Monday — all happened within a Right to Counsel district, where city officials found low-income renters are most vulnerable to eviction.

Approximately 370 Flatbush families from 260 buildings in the RTC district bordered by Argyle Road, New York, Foster and Parkside avenues saw evictions in 2018, according to the map, which draws from city Marshals evictions data.

And Brooklyn's top five worst evictors, which are ranked on the new website, all of whom have ties to Flatbush.

The Pinnacle Group — which the New York Times reported filed 5,000 eviction notices in less than two years — took top prize with 27 families evicted in Flatbush, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Crown Heights, according to the map.

Their tactics spurred an Attorney General's investigation in 2006 and a 2008 city law allowing tenants to sue for harassment, according to the Times.

Landlord Shalom Drizin evicted 16 families in 2018 from the Ebbets Housing Development, where tenants report dangerous conditions going unfixed, frequent fires and possibly illegal rent hikes.

Jacob and Naftali Hager, with property in Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx, evicted 11 families, three from just one building at 100 East 21st St. in Flatbush.

Moshe Piller — who owns several Flatbush buildings as well as the development where two babies were killed in 2016 when a faulty radiator sent steam pouring into their home — evicted eight families in 2018, according to the map.

And Flatbush landlord Michael Niamonitakis, seventh on the 2016 list of New York City's worst landlords, also evicted eight families, advocates said.

Meridian Properties, Niamonitakis' realty company, was subject to a lawsuit in 2018 after a 58-year-old man froze to death in his Crown Heights apartment, where tenants frequently complained about a lack of heat.

Piller was the target of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project's public demonstration outside Brooklyn Housing Court Monday morning. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams joined the group to call out bad actors who rely on mass evictions to flip increasingly valuable Brooklyn property.

Williams championed the recently passed Right to Counsel law, which mandates tenants be provided attorneys in housing court, as a possible means of curbing the trend.

"This is our time to make sure that we not only strengthen rent regulation but expand it to many people with no protections at all," Williams stated. "People are waiting for action."

New Yorkers curious about the eviction practices of their own home owners can use the Who Owns What tool to track evictions in multiple buildings owned by the same landlord.