On Friday the 13th many are wary of a black cat crossing one’s path. However, ICON Realty was given a wakeup call to be wary about crossing the long-term tenants at 331 Keap Street in the form of a tenants rally. At the protest, the tenants accused ICON of using discrimination and harassment to force them out of their homes, so these apartments could be flipped from stabilized to market-rate.
ICON Realty Management purchased the building in 2014. “At which point our clients became targets for harassment and eviction through any method possible, with construction as harassment serving as the main tactic,” said Monica Millay, tenant organizer for Southside United HDFC – Los Sures. “Rent stabilized tenants in the tenant association are left without adequate repairs for months or are given patchwork repairs which barely, if at all, address the underlying issues.”
ICON has a documented history of harassing its tenants. In September 2017, the office of the Attorney General of NYS, through its Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force, found that tenant harassment and unsafe living conditions were a prevalent problem across ICON Realty properties, ultimately resulting in a settlement where ICON agreed to stop all harassment practices and pay $500,000 in penalties and at the same time accepted no responsibility for those issues.
The Greenline 