85-Year-Old Spent Christmas Homeless After Flatbush Eviction

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — An ailing 85-year-old woman who was evicted by her “notorious” Flatbush landlord was homeless for Christmas – weeks after city officials and the landlord promised to help her find a home, advocates said.

“I’m in pain and I’m tired,” said Joy P. Noel. “I’m very tired.”

Noel has been sleeping on friends couches and battling illness since she was locked out of her home on Ditmas Avenue and East 21st Street, according to advocates from the Flatbush Tenanta Coalition.

The organization, which has been fighting to get Noel back into the apartment for weeks, argued she was wrongly evicted by a landlord looking to displace rent stabilized tenants.

“The eviction is part of an intense harassment campaign by her landlord -- notorious Isaac Jacobowitz of Carnegie Management to deregulate Ms. Noel's entire building in one fell swoop,” Flatbush Tenants Coalition organizers wrote on a Razoo fundraiser for Noel.

“Being homeless is taking a severe physical toll," the group added in an email. "Ms. Noel was briefly hospitalized last week, and she is now in desperate need of visiting home medical care. Visiting nurses say they cannot provide care while Ms. Noel is on a couch.”

Noel told Patch she felt too unwell to speak on the telephone Wednesday.

Noel first discovered she had been evicted this summer when she returned home from trip — to receive out-of-state medical care — and found her door was locked and her possessions gone, advocates said.

Carnegie Management filed a claim against Noel, arguing that she had refused to resign her lease, advocates said.

But because Noel’s name was misspelled in the court documents and the wrong zip code was filed, Noel never received notice that her home was in jeopardy and lost her case by default.

This is not the first time Jacobowitz’ company has made headlines — a New York Times report from 2014 details how the Carnegie Management illegally forced a Williamsburg tenant out of her $700-a-month home when she refused a buyout.

Flatbush Tenants Coalition has rallied behind Noel and is demanding the 85-year-old woman be allowed to move back into her home and that the landlord pay for necessary building repairs.

The group gathered several Brooklyn representatives — including City Councilman Jumaane Williams, who represents East Flatbush and chairs the housing and buildings committee — to protest Noel’s treatment in November.

But the tenants organization noted that, more than one month later, Noel was still without a home despite city officials and the landlord's promises to help.

“If NYC Administration cannot find an apartment for one elderly woman and the court allows a landlord to get away with lies,” the Flatbush Tenants Coalition wrote in a statement, “What are the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers on the brink of homelessness supposed to do?”

Jacobowitz did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Photo by Patch reporter Marc Torrence