Norwood News

In late October, when Henry Perry walked down into the lobby of his Mosholu Parkway building, the same lobby of the same building he’s lived in since 1968, he noticed something dramatically different. There was a security guard sitting there.

When he asked what was going on, the guard informed him that the building’s vacancies, which had multiplied exponentially over the previous two years, had been filled almost instantaneously.

Overnight, his building had become half homeless shelter.

“What the heck is this?” he said to himself at the time. “I’m paying rent to live in a homeless shelter?”

Perry thought he was alone until last month when he read a Norwood News article about how Bedford Park residents were furious that a similar shelter was set up across the street from PS 8 without any community, school or tenant notification. Both buildings were being managed by the same firm, Aguila, Inc., a nonprofit run by Peter M. Rivera, a well-connected lawyer who serves on several Bronx boards and is the son of Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera.

The outrage caused the city’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to scrap plans to open a new Aguila-run facility at 2903 Valentine Ave. and adopted a notification policy. From now on, it’s DHS policy to notify the community when they are using 50 percent or more units in a building.  

For the two years prior to Perry’s surprise, the building’s landlord, Charles Wertman, had been rooting out existing tenants, mostly by taking them to Housing Court for not paying back rent, according to organizers with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and tenants. He then sat on the apartments and renovated them while other tenant complaints went ignored, Perry and Coalition organizers said.

Wertman and Rivera did not return phone calls seeking comment for this article.

Estefania DeJesus, who’s lived in the building for eight years, said once Wertman took over the building, it emptied rapidly. “People left really quickly,” she said. “It was like an infection.”

One of DeJesus’s neighbors, a good friend of her mother’s (who also lives with DeJesus, along with DeJesus’s 5-year-old daughter), said Wertman had given her an eviction notice, saying she owed $10,000 in back rent. The neighbor knew she didn’t owe even close to that much, DeJesus said, but didn’t have the check receipts or the wherewithal to fight back. She moved soon after.

“There were lockouts,” Perry said. “One woman was evicted without notice. She was thrown out of her apartment by city marshals while she was still in her pajamas.”

DeJesus said the first time she met Wertman he told her that if her family didn’t pay rent immediately (it was a few days overdue), they should start packing their bags immediately. Then he walked out of the room.

Housing organizers say this type of intimidation is a typical tactic landlords employ when trying to flush a building of existing tenants. Sally Dunford, director of the West Bronx Housing, a tenant advocacy group, said similar tactics were used at the Bedford Park building, 3001 Briggs Ave.

Over the past two years, tenants, backed by organizers, have continued to press for the landlord to prioritize repairs over renovations, even getting New York Community Bank, which holds the building’s mortgage, to perform inspections. Still, the landlord refused to set a timeline for repairs and the bank did not hold Wertman accountable, tenants and organizer said. (The bank did not return a call seeking comment.)

There are currently 164 open housing violations at the building, according to city records. There are 315 open violations at the Briggs building.

On May 18, a mysterious string of fires started with a blaze in the basement and courtyard. On July 9, the doormat of DeJesus, who had emerged as a tenant leader, was set on fire with a stack of wood in the building lobby, DeJesus said. Less than a month later, on Aug. 6, fires broke out in separate apartments on opposite sides of the building. Some of the fires did damage to apartments housing tenants. By mid-September none of fire damage had been repaired but renovations continued. 

Perry, DeJesus and tenant organizers were convinced someone had set at least the past two fires. DeJesus said many tenants believed the landlord did it for insurance money to finish renovations. The Fire Department didn’t respond to inquiries about the fires by press time.

DHS says it wasn’t aware of any of this.

“DHS does not place clients in any facility where we are aware of tenant harassment or improper landlord dealings, and has in fact backed away from buildings before because of knowledge of these types of incidents,” a DHS spokesperson wrote in an e-mail. “No information about harassment at Mosholu Parkway has been brought to DHS’ attention.”