Scene - marshall scare Sot - are you kidding me? this is my fucking shit! SOT MARSHALLS SCARE (20150318) - 50N467 - DANNY - hi - i’m calling from 692 new lots avenue. we were told the marshalls were coming today to close the house down? new lots avenue in brooklyn (pause) yes - i’m a tenant. daniel puff. (arguing in the background) upstairs. TEXT CARD - Over 120 (TK) residents are slowly being evicted at a series of houses in East New York, Brooklyn. TEXT CARD - In JULY of 2014 the courts confirmed that the building owner was owed over $300,000 for (TK year/months) of unpaid rent. TEXT CARD - The residents say their government-issued rent checks were paid directly to a middleman who never paid the building owner. SOT - I wouldn’t touch your shit, poppy. i never took nothing from you 5N457 - (says off camera) - danny - it’s like having your head in a guillotine and it breaks half way down it doesn’t fall all the way down - are they coming or not? SOT - Danny asks the Marshalls and they respond not today....which ones are you guys closing today? (92 and 94) - 92-1 or both of them.... oh so you’re not doing upstairs yet right TEXT CARD - That middleman is Yuri Baumblit. PART 2 - Yuri Baumblett owns the house and has not been paying rent for some time. Yuri owns other houses, and has a history of egregious behavior Scene - (Yuri removes a stove used for heat at TK street. Courtesy of TK) SOT Lawyers - 27:00 - Lawyers - -Mr. Baumblit, we know based on years of litigation, operates many ¾ houses across the city. Scene - yuri grabs the cellphone of the tenant and they argue... TEXT - YURI BAUMBLETT REFUSED TO TALK TO US FOR THIS STORY ( PHOTOS FROM RUTH) SOT INTV - Lawyers - lawyers - 54:00 - So three-quarter houses are an underground housing system in New York City. // 55:30 The main characteristics are that they’re not licensed, they’re claiming to provide a service, and they’re overcrowded. And so they’re operating in kind of an underground housing economy. Where private landlords are often leasing their buildings to ¾ house operators who hang out a shingle and call themselves a programmatic housing of some kind even though they have no license and no funding from the government. // (GRAPHIC MAP WITH OTHER ¾ HOUSING NAMES??>>>>> Yuri’s previous ¾ houses “) PART 3 - The people that lose out are the people like danny puff. Getting to know Danny Puff. Scene - Danny at Dunkin Doughnuts with his girlfriend - 5N_512 - danny sings along to a song...5N_513_12;59;44 - danny talking about which pictures he sent to his mom of her...or them playfully bickering over his crappy phone TEXT CARD - In court, Mr. Baumblit had agreed to help relocate his tenants back in June of 2014. TEXT CARD - Instead, he continued to move in new residents through the fall. One of those residents is Daniel Puff. SOT DANNY’S INTERVIEW 2 - 12:23 - My mother and father were divorced when I was, pretty young, about three years old, and I was born in New Jersey, and moved around a lot and I was, even at a young age, 13 14 years old, kind of strayed a lot. I just got involved with the wrong people, felt like I fit in. Ended up doing a lot of things I never thought I’d do. I was incarcerated the first time at fourteen years old, D: I mean as crazy as it may sound it’s, comfortable. It’s, the life I’ve known for the 21:57 past twenty-five years you know? 22:35 Like when my daughter was born, that was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever felt, but I was so damn scared I went and got high. Scene - Danny at the library SOT - Danny at the library 5N_470 - Counselor on the phone - go back to my apply.phoenix.edu - runs through ‘okay, start date, program of study ’ you’re looking for bachelor of science with business SOT - Daniel Puff INTV - Challenge for me today is just staying clean on a daily basis. // I mean if I was to relapse it, it could just be that one bag that 55:46 could take my life. // DANNY INTV 1 - DANNY 00;32 - I’m excited I’m doing a lot of good stuff, but it’s very discouraging to not know where I’m going to be living in a month and a half from now, you know? This isn’t the first time I’ve been doing good and it got messed up. But... I’ve messed up a lot and i don’t want that to happen again and it’s discouraging, ‘cause I don’t know what the outcome is gonna be and like here I am you know, working my ass off to do all this, and, like even though we got to stay till’ February 28th like, I don’t know 01:06 what the outcomes gonna be after that - removed) SOT REMOVED -Danny sitting at the desk at the library - 5N 429 - 51;54 - i’m pretty excited about starting these classes - it’s been twenty years so i’ve been in school (low audio - removed) PART 4 - Yuri is just one of many ¾ house operators who act this way and take advantage of the system. Protest - 5N_364 - chanting ‘NRI NRI - why do you support this guy” - showing pictures Speech “people put their trust in this man, and now a lot of them are homeless today” Lawyers - 31:30 So NRI is an OASAS-licensed drug treatment program. //And as a condition, at the time, as a condition of living in many of Mr. Baumblit’s houses, tenants had told us that there was a requirement that if you lived in one of three-quarter houses, you had to attend an outpatient drug treatment program 30:32 at NRI, is the name of the outpatient drug treatment program. 13:32 and some three-quarter house landlords. A lot of three-quarter houses require tenants to attend one specific outpatient program. Doesn’t matter if they are already enrolled in a different program and doing well there. Doesn’t matter if there’s another program that’s much closer to where they live or where they work or where their family is. They have to attend this one specific program. And what we hear over and over from tenants is, there’s kickbacks, that there is a financial interest Scene - Danny on the subway - PART 5 - City services can’t monitor ¾ houses and ¾ house operators take advantage of that. This is a financial plan that allows them to proliferate Scene - Danny at HRA trying to get HRA to stop payments to Yuri // Danny and the residents at the Courthouse trying to get more time in the house TEXT CARD WITH DATE - January 12, 2015 Danny talks to the receptionist at HRA - SOT - 5N_539 - ‘no i haven’t moved. i’m supposedly - hra investigators were calling them and 540 - so im trying to found out what’s going on with that. (can’t understand what person says ) - no - what you’re saying -t hat’s not from us we don’t do that (REMOVED SOT - d - i don’t know exactly where it was. you gotta understand i just about became homeless. 70 other people are already homeless in the street. i don’t know when exactly my appointment was. i been under a lot of stress. and i just remembered i had the appointment. ) SOT - 5N_54730;07 - DANNY’S STANDUP INTERVIEW AT HRA- today were at hra. i came because - a payment for my rent was made to yuri and there’s no reason for this man to continue to get rent when i don’t have a place to stay legitimately for the rest of the month. I came to see if they really had the knowledge of what was going on and if there was any other assistance they could offer me. What I got from my caseworker was - she didn’t know anything about it. It was in the system to continue to pay the rent. (goes on about the lease basically //5N_0549) as any of the assistance they have planned out for the residents at 700 - they don’t have anything set up for us. So basically - i have to continue to do the footwork on my own and find my own housing. SOT - lawyers - 05:00 A2: Right, so the Human Resources Administration, HRA, is the agency that administers public assistance benefits. // So yes, it’s a huge agency. And they 06:30 aren’t checking every individual’s apartment to see what the living conditions are. SCENE - DANNY ON THE SUBWAY 9:00 - So that’s where we see, you know, the three-quarter house operators doing everything they can to keep that money from 09:32 HRA flowing, to continue to profit until it’s not possible anymore. And it’s to the detriment of the tenants, who are in no position to plan to move out, because they don’t even know that the eviction is coming. So that’s where we see a really predatory type of person who’s attracted to run three-quarter houses, and to squeeze as much money out of people that they’re claiming that they’re there to help. ) SCENE - DANY AT HOME - EVICTION NOTICE IS ON THE TABLE 33:30 - lawyers - that kind of financial plan is pretty typical from what we’ve seen in the way mr. baumblit does business and we see it in other ¾ houses as well. there’s often an allegation that the rent hasn’t been paid and at the end of the day, SOT lawyers - lawyers - 33:00 - I think that New Lots Avenue, the houses at New Lots Avenue, are in some ways pretty typical. In fact, this isn’t the first time that Mr. Baumblit or the entities that he’s controlled have been evicted by the building owners. It’s not the second or even the third time. We’ve seen this happen over and over. for the ¾ house operator, it’s just another day of doing business and they move to another location. The results are pretty devastating for the people living in the building. Sot - older roommate - Right now no one wants to give up their ¾ spot because its cold. As soon as it gets warmer, a lot of people, rather than deadlining with that kind of lifestyle, will just go live on the street - and they mess up. they go back to whatever. I’m trying to keep my promise to my daughter and my wife, but this definitely messed up my plan. i said i’d go a whole year straight. 6 - The anxiety of the housing scare is threatening to derail danny’s progress with both his recovery and his plans to become independent from the system. SCENE - The Breakfast Club TEXT CARD WITH DATE - March 13, 2015 00;19;52 - Serenity prayer. “I hope no one gets offended, who’s in charge of all of us? A - God!” Sadie - 2;49 - i met danny in 2014. 3;11 - when he first came he was a piece of work.... Danny was a peice of work. you could tell that he had enough of what he was usin’ out in the streets. and danny was looking for help. SOT - 00;30;13 - nice cu of danny - guy receives certificate - ‘at the residence i’m known as macho, peewee, the other guy, whatever, whatever, but - sadie has been a big part of my change . i didn’t know i was going to be in a residence for 16 months. i went in there kickin and screaming’ Sadie - Sadie - ¾ Houses Um..... Everything’s not legit that’s the best way I could say it. Addicts are human beings, and the majority of them get treated like addicts SOT - INTV - SADIE - 11;18 - for a person in recovery such as danny - going back to the old neighborhood - if you don’t’ have the strength to handle the old neighborhood, you’re going to end up using again. and 9 out of 10, he don’t have anyone to go to, to stay with because either they don’t trust him or they want him to use with them. he’s trying to avoid that. 11;49 - danny wants to stay clean. today he wants to stay clean. DANNY ON THE MIC - 01;49;34 - As of Monday - the ¾ house that I’m living in is getting shut down and it’s (PAUSES)....it’s .......fucked up. Anyway, let me get back on an upnote. i started college last month, i had to take a leave of absence because i didn’t have everything to put into it. SOT DANNY - INTV - from marshall scare - can’t show - Marshall Scare - There’s actually places that said - well - you might as well relapse so you can get into this place.// Are you serious? I’m not relapsing so I can get into another program. I’m not going through that again. DANNY ON THE MIC - 01;45;23 - i’ve been in and out of prison and programs and i’m just getting old (laughs) it’s really - i’m getting to that point - i want to do something more. i don’t want to die in the street a drug addict. i don’t want to die in the street without my family, my loved ones. i got a beautiful 9 year old daughter i haven’t seen in 7 years because of the choices that i made that led me to prison. DANNY ON THE MIC - I had actually wrote this for my daughter while I was in prison. “The thought of you is as perfect as can be, like when the sun sets and reflects off the sea. TEXT CARD - On March 25, Danny moved into a different three quarter house. TEXT CARD - Yuri Baumblet 0has since started operating 2 new three quarter houses.