When Tenants Unite – Residents at 567 St. John's Place Savor Partial Victories, Demand More (The Indypendent)
The Indypendent — Dec 19, 2025
By Ella Spitz
In 2021, after decades of living in horrible conditions, the tenants of 567 St. John’s Place in Brooklyn felt like they had finally won — the city sided with them in court and took control over the building away from their slumlord. The court granted their petition for the building to be put into the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s 7A program, in which a court-appointed administrator is in charge of collecting rents and making repairs.
But, three years after winning their case, the tenants are still waiting for their living conditions to improve. “Anything you can think of, 567 St. John’s has experienced it,” tenant Evelyn De Leon told The Indy. “Uneven floors that make walking dangerous, constant bedbug and rat infestations, collapsing ceilings, damaged outlets, leaking pipes, and apartments without proper stoves or fridges.”
The four-story, eight-unit building currently has 477 open violations listed on HPD’s online database, including 87 Class C — “immediately hazardous” — violations such as mice infestations, crumbling ceiling plaster, and lead paint. The building sits half a block west of Franklin Avenue in a rapidly gentrifying part of Crown Heights. The apartments are rent-stabilized, but the tenants’ previous landlord, Gerard Tema, had been illegally overcharging them.
One tenant, who wished to remain anonymous, moved in five years ago, and said he had been paying $500 more than his legal rent. It’s become a part of the playbook for landlords of rent-stabilized units to push tenants out by letting the building and units fall into disrepair, flipping the units, and then renting them to new tenants at much higher rates.
But these tenants aren’t budging.