Many of you will not be able to help me in any way with this, but I think
you need to know what’s happening nevertheless.  I suspect this happens to
many of the physically disabled poor.  Their lives get torn apart, and
nobody knows about it.  Some rich landlord gets a little richer, while a
poor person, (even someone with severe disabilities), loses their home,
their possessions, and even their connections with other people!

After being taken in by a friend who was mentally ill, (after losing my own
apartment), and after that person became sicker, and had to leave here, the
landlord is evicting me.  There are no affordable apartments available in
Manhattan, and if you’re talking about wheelchair accessible apartments,
FORGET IT!  (I use a wheelchair.)  (I won’t survive in an outlying borough,
in a dangerous neighborhood, isolated from people in Manhattan that help me!
  I’ve already been physically attacked by “young males” from the projects,
so I steer clear of those kinds of places.  I’m not sure what was thrown at
me at one point.  I think it was a bottle.)

The landlord is apparently thinking about the “bottom line!”  He let the
back rent build up…  Legal Aid told me they “couldn’t do anything until it
came right down to the wire!”  And the landlord needed to serve me with
eviction papers before they would act.  A lot of time went by.  I was
served, (a few times), with papers having to do with THE CAR’S PARKING
SPACE, downstairs in the parking lot, but no one came to my door with
anything having to do with the apartment.  An eternity went by, but nobody
lifted a finger to head something like this off!  I knew I was headed for a
very bad situation but there was little I could do!  I’m severely disabled.
A nonverbal spastic, athetoid quad, (like CEREBRAL PALSY), with low vision.
I can’t use a phone or read text.  Email is my only line to “the outside
world,” and until recently, I couldn’t even leave this neighborhood!  The
electric scooter I got from Medicaid, DIDN’T FIT ON THE BUS!  And when I
complained about this, (at United Cerebral Palsy, down on East 23rd Street,
here in New York, I was told, “that was the only scooter that could be
approved.  That’s the law!  And if I didn’t like it, I should go to
Washington and LOBBY!”  (I guess they expected me to crawl there…..!)

Anyway, the landlord refused my friend’s rent check, saying he violated the
lease.  When he got sicker, he went to his girlfriend’s, so she could take
care of him, leaving me here alone.  The landlord said: “he wasn’t living
here, and he had an illegal sublet.”  My friend didn’t tell the landlord
that I was here, BECAUSE HE SUFFERED FROM A DISABLING ANXIETY DISORDER.  He
was AFRAID to!  The lease was never violated maliciously!

Someone in the neighborhood helped me get a Section-8 rent voucher.  So soon
after my friend left, I had the ability to pay the rent here!  (This is a
RENT STABILIZED apartment, and the rent is only $100 more than my voucher!)
Current rents everywhere else, are much much higher, so staying here seemed
like the best option.  If I’m forced to leave, my life will be literally
torn apart!  I’ve learnt, over the years, to take care of myself IN THIS
APARTMENT!  The placement of the sink, in relation to the bathtub, is
important because of the routines I established so I could wash and brush my
teeth in the morning!  if I get on the floor, and lean over the bathtub, I
can do things like wash my face, or eat on my own!  I rigged a hose, going
from the bathroom sink faucet, to the bathtub, so I could fill a cup, or wet
a cloth.  It used to take me five hours to wash & dress everyday!  Now I can
do it in under two hours!  Take me away from this apartment, and I’m
“helpless” again!  I took YEARS to figure out how to do this stuff here, and
I dread having to start all over!  It took me for ever to find the right
hose, that would fit in the bathroom sink faucet!

And also, like most men, I guess, I’m fighting the aging process!  :)  My
hair is turning grey!  I darken my mustache!  You might think that this
routine would be something I could let go of easily!  But I have an extra
problem!  I was born with a facial deformity.  A cleft palate & lip.  I went
through hell because of this, when I was younger, until I figured out how to
cover it up, with a big “walrus” moustache!  The moustache, a pair of “John
Lennon wire rim glasses, & a Beatle haircut, distracted people away from the
deformity, and my life changed INSTANTLY!  Now that I’m older, the moustache
is turning grey!  It’s losing its shape, and no longer doing its job,
(unless I use that “stuff!”)  (“GREYaway, Only for ‘REAL’ MEN!)  :)  I made
a kind of “vanity table” that fits in the BATHTUB.  Getting down on the
floor, and leaning over the tub, enbles me to color my mustache!  Hands
free!  There’s a light, & an adjustable “jig” that holds a MIRROR and a
BRUSH.  I have everything worked out!  From mixing the
hair-dye GOO, to applying it, (by moving my head over the mounted brush),
to rincing it off!  I use an electric screwdriver to unscrew the caps on the
little tubes!  Everything’s worked out.  And the routine is very intricate!
Change ANYTHING, and everything falls apart!

I’m horrified at the prospect of not being able to take care of myself!  And
the thought of uncovering that deformity after all these years totally
floors me!  I’m actually surprised that even THIS landlord, (notorious for
being cruel & mean), is doing this to me!

People in the system, (social workers etc.), don’t really know what to do in
cases like this.  And they’re constrained by rules & regulations, (and lack
of money), so anyone in my position could easily “fall through the cracks “
and get crushed!

Legal Aid accepted my case about a year ago, and when eviction papers were
served, I won that round in court on a technicality.  (My name wasn’t on the
papers.)

After that, time passed.  And little or nothing was done to try and head off
the coming storm!  Rent bills started arriving.  I asked my social worker
about these…  Could it be that the management office wasn’t aware of what
was happening?  There was no response.

When the lease was up, I got a rent bill saying, “your lease has expired.
Call the office immediately.”  My social worker asked my Legal Aid lawyer
what we should do about this, and was told that I shouldn’t worry about it.
And that we needed to wait for actual eviction papers to arrive.  I’d get
served, we’d go to court, and everything would take a really long time!

Although I had the Section-8 voucher, back rent was building up.  And
section-8 won’t pay that!  I asked about this, and was told that if the
landlord accepted my voucher and allowed me to stay, the CITY would pay the
back rent!  But until papers were served, nobody would do anything to head
things off!

I was worried about being put out in the street!  I was told, there’s a law
that protects me, (because I’m severely disabled), and I COULDN’T be put out
until a suitable apartment was found for me.  But recently, another social
worker told me that the city WOULDN’T pay the back rent!  My name wasn’t on
the lease, and now, there was no lease at all!  And on top of all of this,
even if I won in court, and could stay here, the landlord is not obligated
to accept my voucher!  He can refuse!  No questions asked!  And that’s just
what he did.

And now I’m being told, (by a lawyer, gotten for me by a new friend), that
there IS NO PROTECTION for me!  And if the marshals came to force me out,
I’d end up in an institution, (like so many other disabled, being held
against their will), unless I could prove I had someplace to go!!!!

During all this time, while the system sat idle, I tried to make something
happen on my own.  if nothing else, I needed to be able TO TRAVEL, so I
could try and make contact with others “like me!”  I was incredibly lonely.
Cut off by family, with no normal friendships, I dreamt of just being able
to go over someone’s house to watch a video!  But someone as severely
disabled as me, could never really bond and become a part of the lives of
the people around me at the time.  Able-bodied, blind, or “mildly” disabled,
lived a different life!  A wheelchair CHANGES you into a different creature!
  STAIRS are a barrier!  These people lived, worked & played in places where
I couldn’t go.  And because I can’t talk, real bonding is nearly impossible.

So when I was told I could get a new power wheelchair, I did my best to
research things, looking for a chair with a long enough range to get me out
of the neighborhood!  Maybe I could make contact with some of the people I
knew before I became so debilitated!  I knew people that used power
wheelchairs, like me!  And there was one person in particular, who’s level
of disability was similar to mine.  When I got my new chair, I would go down
to his neighborhood and seek him out.

Well, I finally connected with this person and his family.  (You know what
they say about “birds of a feather!”)  We came together with such force,
that the universe shook!

When I told them about my housing situation, they became very alarmed, and
immediately went to work for me.  They know a lawyer who works for legal
aid.  And he looked for me in the computer, and found out that the last
lawyer had CLOSED MY CASE!  And that the landlord had already gone to court!
  He told them that eviction papers had been served.  THAT’S A LIE!  The
marshals were already on their way here to lock me out!  So now, we’re
scrambling to get to court before the marshals come here!

This new lawyer knows the landlord’s lawyer.  (Works with him all the time.)
  They spoke.  The landlord’s lawyer called the landlord, asking for mercy!
The landlord hung up on him!!!!!  I think you have to stoop pretty low to
kick a severely disabled man out of the only affordable, wheelchair
accessible apartment in Manhattan!

This is a rent stabilized apartment, and if the landlord gets me out, he
could raise the rent, and get much more money!  if I stay, the rent has to
remain pretty much the same.  So naturally, they want me out.  It doesn’t
matter how disabled I am.  It doesn’t matter if I get locked away in an
institution for the rest of my life, (like so many other disabled people,
[because of a system, full of holes, and continual budget cuts by the
“closet Nazis” that run this government])!  All that matters is money.  The
bottom line!  The landlord wants money!  And he refuses to even discuss
this.  Even with HIS OWN LAWYER!

Can anybody help with this?

I’m thinking if the landlord could be embarrassed in the media, maybe he
could be force to back down here.

At one point I made a small effort to rally some tenants around me.  But
nobody thought they could help.  One person’s comment was, “but there are
places for disabled people!”  Sure there are!  BIG places, up state!  With
locked doors!

------------------------------------
The person I connected with, (along with his family), snatch me from
SPAGHETTIFICATION in the black hole of neglect by the system, IN THE NICK OF
TIME!  Was it by the grace of God, that we connected NOW, instead of a week
later?

Please try and bring this story out in the open!  Call the media!  THERE ARE
NO AVAILABLE APARTMENTS FOR PEOPLE WITH PHYSICAL DISABILITIES!  I AM
CURRENTLY IN ONE!!!!  But because the landlord wants to make more of a
PROFIT, I’m being forced out!  I DID NOTHING WRONG!  I’m disabled & ill.
And I need a safe place to live!



      Very Sincerely,
        Jonathan Rand
------------------------------------

Jonathan Rand
792 Columbus Ave.,
Apt. 5-T
New York, NY 10025

Landlord:
PARK WEST VILLAGE