Three of the last few residents at Prospect Park Residence in the largely vacant dining room. Image by indypendent.org

By Josh Nathan-Kazis June 1, 2017

After a landlord’s mass eviction at a heavily Jewish Brooklyn nursing home caused panic three years ago, the Legal Aid Society is suing the state’s Department of Health to keep it from happening again, the Daily News reported Thursday.

The suit stems from the 2014 effort to evict seniors from the Prospect Park Residence in Brooklyn. Advocates fought those evictions, effectively postponing them by three years before winning residents significant cash payouts.

Now, Legal Aid’s lawsuit seeks to force the Health Department to adopt new rules to help seniors when landlords seek to shut down nursing homes. The suit demands that the Health Department help seniors relocate when evicted from nursing homes regulated by the department, according to the Daily News.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis of the crisis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The Health Department said in a statement to the paper that it had acted appropriately with regard to the evicted seniors. “As part of the department’s oversight of Prospect Park Residence, all federal and state laws pertaining to the operation of the facility and resident’s rights were followed,” the department said.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount