Maimonides workers protest, as hospital seeks to push more tenants out of employee housing

Maimonides Medical Center is seeking to empty two of its Borough Park buildings that have been used for employee housing by the end of the year — adding to the number of current and former workers who could lose their homes as the hospital proceeds with evictions of families from other buildings that once served as employee housing.

Tenants at 974 and 968 47th St. shared notices from Maimonides with Gothamist that say the hospital is seeking to end its employee housing program at the properties, which hospital officials confirmed. About 30 apartments in the buildings are still occupied, according to Tina Lee, a spokesperson for Maimonides.

“The buildings need upgrades that have been forecasted as exceedingly high, which is why we arrived at the decision to no longer offer housing in those buildings,” Lee said in an email this week.

Last month, a fire broke out at 974 47th St., adding to the building’s maintenance issues. The hallways inside were still charred and smelled of smoke on Wednesday morning, but Lee said utility companies had inspected the building and that it was safe to occupy.

Maimonides, which has more than 700 beds, is a major health care provider in Brooklyn, but faces an uncertain future due to its financial struggles. The hospital lost nearly $130 million on operations last year, down from $145 million the previous year.

Current and former Maimonides workers and their family members who have been ordered to vacate these and other buildings protested the hospital’s treatment of its tenants at a rally outside the medical center on Wednesday morning.

About two dozen protesters held signs and chanted outside the hospital before marching to the nearby office of Tami Ellis, Maimonides’ director of real estate and offsite engineering, though she wasn’t in.

“Don’t evict essential workers,” one sign read.

“When my husband was working through COVID, he was taking a chance of getting my children sick, but he stayed loyal to the hospital and went to work every shift,” Jaclyn Salvatore, who lives at 974 47th St. with her two sons and her husband, a security worker at Maimonides, said in an interview. “And then all of a sudden, out of the clear blue sky, we get notes that the housing program closed, that’s it, everyone’s got to get out.”

Salvatore shared a notice with Gothamist that Maimonides sent in September saying her family would have to be out of their apartment by Dec. 31.

The demonstration comes after state Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes hosted an organizing meeting for Maimonides tenants at her Sunset Park office earlier this month, drawing a crowd of about 50.

Gothamist previously reported that Maimonides has filed nearly 40 evictions against current and former hospital employees over the past year. That includes evictions at buildings Maimonides still owns as well as those the hospital sold to a private developer, Iris Holdings Group, in 2018.

That company is receiving a tax break from the city to turn the properties into affordable housing for low- and middle-income New Yorkers, according to an agreement between the company and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Under the deal, the developer was required to offer rent-stabilized leases to all existing tenants in the buildings – except those who worked for Maimonides.

At least 20 of the tenants facing eviction have banded together to fight the filings and are awaiting a decision from the judge.

Salvatore said she would like to move out of her apartment, given the condition of the building, but her family needs to save up to do so.

Lee said Maimonides is offering current employees at 968 and 974 47th St. five free months of rent to ease the transition – but Salvatore and two other tenants who spoke to Gothamist denied receiving any kind of discount.

Lee specified that employees have to formally accept the offer to benefit from the rent relief. But Salvatore said in her husband’s case there was never any such offer. And Melissa Sepulveda, another Maimonides employee being asked to vacate her apartment, also said she didn’t receive the offer.

“I’ve never heard anything like that,” Sepulveda said at the rally.

Maimonides does not currently have plans to sell the buildings at 968 and 974 47th St., Lee said. She added that the hospital continues to provide employee housing at two other buildings the hospital owns in the area.