Community Board Six is holding an information session tonight about the proposed homeless shelter at 165 West 9th Street in Carroll Gardens. Attending will be the Department of Homeless Services, proposed shelter operator and nonprofit Housing Solutions USA, local politicians and concerned Carroll Gardens residents. Meanwhile, Capital New York continues to investigate the building’s ownership and ties to proposed shelter operator Housing Solutions USA. The latest column reveals that the building’s owner from 2001 to 2004 was Stuart Podolsky, who 30 years ago pled guilty to harassing rent-controlled tenants in several buildings he and his family owned. He may still be the owner: It is not clear who currently owns the building because ownership is sheltered under an LLC name. Back in the day, the Podolskys hired gangs to “break into rent-controlled units and ransack them, start fires and floods, and ‘generally do their utmost to make the building unlivable,’ according to a court decision,” said Capital New York. “Prosecutors claimed that a 72-year-old man was pushed down a flight of stairs, and an elderly woman died of pneumonia after the heat to her apartment was cut. Another tenant hanged himself,” the column said. The meeting takes place tonight, Wednesday, Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m. at P.S. 58 at 330 Smith Street in the auditorium. A press advisory about the meeting sent out by the Coalition for Carroll Gardens said meeting attendees have “grave concerns about the lack of public process, inhuman conditions of putting 170 men in a 10 unit apartment complex, and the obvious conflict of interest between a Housing Solutions USA board member listed as the owner of the property on the building’s deed.”
Hidden in Shelter Project, an Owner with “Terror” on Resume [Capital NY]
Worrisome Revelations About Carroll Gardens Homeless Shelter [Brooklyn Eagle]
Pushback on Planned Carroll Gardens Homeless Shelter [Brownstoner]
Photo by Pardon Me For Asking


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