Flatbush Grandma Evicted After Typo Gets City Support

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — A Brooklyn grandma officials say was unfairly evicted from her home after a typo meant she never received a court summons will get help from the city as she takes her landlord to court.

Joy P. Noel lived in a rent-controlled building on East 21st Street and Ditmas Avenue in Flatbush for more than 20 years. Earlier this year she left the state for medical treatment and, when she came back, her landlord had kicked her out of her apartment, she says.

During that time her landlord had taken her to court over unpaid rent, but the case was filed in the wrong zip code and her name was misspelled, so she never received notice to appear, according to the Flatbush Tenant Coalition and a host of elected officials.

Her landlord, Isaac Jacobowitz of Carnegie Management, said she refused to sign a lease renewal and owed $75,000 in rent.

But Noel says the landlord was trying to illegally raise the rent on her unit and deregulate the building.

The tenants' groups held a rally in the building on Nov. 23 to support her. They say Noel's case is representative of a bigger problem across the city.

"This Vigil is for our community, for our people who need a home," Noel said at the event, according to an email from the tenants' group. "This city needs to stop predator landlords from putting money in front of humanity."

"We have to send a message tot hem that we are not standing for it any more," Loraine Dellamore, a member of the coalition, told Patch on Monday. "It is not right. And the city should be able to stand up and say, 'Enough is enough. You have to put this tenant back into her home that she was wrongfully evicted from.'"

A Carnegie Management representative showed up to the event to say it has done nothing wrong.

"We have no problem providing an apartment for her. As we speak, we can do it today but we need to be assured that we're going to get paid for an apartment," Jacob Friedman, the operations manager for Carnegie Management, told New York 1 at the Thanksgiving Day rally.

While Noel and the tenants' rights advocates fight her landlord in court, she will be getting some help from the city, according to the coalition.

They said that the city's Human Resources Administration is helping pay the storage costs for her goods that were removed from the apartment when she was evicted.

Noel also has the support of several elected officials, including City Councilmen Jumaane Williams and Mathieu Eugene. They and others showed up to a rally earlier this month to bring awareness to her case.

"We’re going to continue applying the pressure," Dellamore said.

And activists point out that her case could be a lengthy one. A similar case against the same landlord took over two years to resolve, and the tenant was eventually allowed to move back in.

Lead photo by Marc Torrence, Patch Staff