Clinton Hill Handyman's Eviction Postponed After Resident Outcry

CLINTON HILL, BROOKLYN — A housing cooperative will postpone evicting its longtime live-in handyman after weeks of resident outcry, but tenants say the fight to keep him and his family in their home is far from over.

The board that oversees the Clinton Hill Cooperatives, a 12-building complex made up of 1,2000 apartments, sent a letter to tenants late last week announcing they would postpone evicting Hector Caballero, who had previously been told he would have to leave his apartment by April 15. Caballero and his family, who have lived in the complex for 19 years, will now have a move-out date of July 1.

The decision comes after weeks of residents holding protests, creating petitions and battling with board members for answers about the eviction.

Board members said the extra months will give them more time to look into other options to fix what they called "inequity" caused by Caballero's arrangement.

"Because we are committed to running a fair cooperative community, we needed to address the inequity of providing free housing to a few handymen, when the majority of handymen do not receive free housing," the letter reads. "To be clear, the handymen provided with free housing and utilities did not have any specific purities associated with these additional benefits."

Tenants speaking out against the eviction had previously argued — in addition to the "human level" of kicking out a longtime tenant — that Caballero's rent-free arrangement is justified because of his ability to be on-call 24 hours and because of his decades of experience working in the complex.

The board contends, though, that it has contracted external vendors to address emergency issues and that, largely because of improvements it has made to the buildings, resident handymen only worked an average of four overtime hours per month in 2018.

But residents reacting to the letter on Monday said they still doubt the "inequity" rationale given that board members had previously pointed to financial reasons when explaining the eviction. They also said that nearly a dozen maintenance staff members have thanked them for fighting for Caballero.

"That's over half the maintenance staff," resident Diana Crum said. "So we know the majority of them are in support of Hector. The fairness argument isn't coming from the majority of the maintenance staff. Where's it coming from?"

Crum added that some residents have compared not allowing Caballero his apartment because new off-site hires to if newer residents asked longtime residents to pay them to make up for the fact that their apartments are more expensive than in past years.

Tenants said they will still continue to call on the board to allow Caballero and his family to stay permanently without changing his financial arrangement.

"While I am relieved that Hector and his family have more time, it doesn't sound like this issue is close to being resolved," tenant Heather Benjamin said.