The video is silent but the body language is clear: the security staff at the Pamoja shelter in Bed-Stuy are engaged in a conversation with a 25-year-old homeless man that is headed in a very wrong direction.
A supervisor in white shirt and two security guards in light blue shirts tightly circle Alexander Singh, getting in his face. A burly shelter resident joins in, stepping in between to cool things down.
And then Singh, his slight frame backed against the wall, makes a mistake — and tosses a rolled-up paper ball at the guards.
The possibility of peaceful resolution is over.
A guard throws a lightning punch to Singh’s head. The burly resident shoves Singh against the wall and Singh’s head bounces off it like a tennis ball. The resident smacks Singh in the head and Singh collapses to the shiny linoleum floor.
The supervisor pushes the resident away but behind his back a security guard winds up and kicks Singh square in the face, then stomps on his prone body.
Singh now lies unmoving as the guard walks away. Yet another shelter resident now jumps in, and just for good measure throws a punch at Singh’s body. The guards and the supervisor don’t move an inch to stop him.
All of this occurred at 2:40 a.m. Nov. 29 inside a Brooklyn shelter that’s 100% funded by city taxpayers. Yet none of these security guards or their supervisor actually work for the city.
Instead they work for a private firm, FJC Security of Long Island. The city did not pick FJC or any of the other private firms currently providing security at shelters across the city. Instead, the city leaves that job up to nonprofit groups it hires to run most of the city’s shelters.
Since 2014 when Mayor de Blasio arrived at City Hall, the city Department of Homeless Services has awarded more than $3.1 billion in contracts to these nonprofit groups. As of January there were 89 of these contracts.
At that time, an analysis of the shelter system by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli estimated that the nonprofits running city-funded shelters were spending $78.2 million on security. That included security equipment and staff employed by the nonprofits, but most of it — $46.1 million — went directly to the for-profit security firms.
None of the private security costs are visible to the public. DHS peace officers are in charge of handling security at city-run shelters with oversight by the NYPD. At the shelters run by the nonprofits, DHS oversees security that’s handled on-site by the private companies.
And at some shelters, that hasn’t worked out so well.
That’s because the firms in charge of security at most city-funded shelters, FJC and Sera Security, have in the last three years been accused repeatedly of enabling and in some cases aggravating violence inside city-funded shelters, a Daily News investigation has found.
Since 2015, 18 shelter residents or staff have filed 16 lawsuits against FJC over violent incidents inside shelters; Sera has been sued five times.
Most alarmingly, security staff are named as assailants in some of these suits:
– An FJC guard at the Stockholm Family Shelter in Bushwick, Brooklyn sexually assaulted a female staffer in the facility’s fax room, one lawsuit alleges.
– A Sera guard dragged a wheelchair-bound client who’d locked his chair in place outside a shelter in Morrisania, the Bronx, damaging the man’s prosthetic legs, a suit charges.
– FJC guards beat a resident of the Barbara S. Kleinman Shelter in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after mistaking him for a man they were chasing, another suit alleges.
– At the Delta Manor shelter in the Bronx where FJC runs security, a suit alleges a client was “struck about the face/head, neck, back, leg and arms by unknown security guards.”
The News requested contract information from Controller DiNapoli and found that in January, FJC was collecting $26.6 million, Sera $13 million. FJC says it provides security at 100 city-funded shelters. Sera did not return calls.
In response to the News’ questions, DHS spokesman Isaac McGinn said Friday the agency was investigating the incidents referenced in the 21 suits and “will take prompt disciplinary action.” The nonprofits are supposed to notify DHS of each lawsuit, and McGinn acknowledged several were not reported as required.
“These allegations don’t reflect our values and New Yorkers working hard to get back on their feet deserve better,” McGinn said. “NYPD has also met with and will continue to meet with FJC to strengthen their protocols and improve security at the locations where they are deployed.”
In an audit earlier this month, Controller DiNapoli charged that gaps in oversight make it impossible for the city to truly account for how all the security money is being spent.
Examining four shelters with the biggest security budgets, DiNapoli found $2.2 million of “insufficiently documented or questionable security expenses” in the last two years.
Sera, for example, got a contract based on its promise to hire six guards per day at its Bronx Park Avenue shelter for a cost of $252,632. Instead, auditors say Sera billed for 10 guards per day, adding an additional $189,073 to the contract for a new total of $441,705 — a 75% spike.
Auditors found FJC won a hefty $824,000 contract that was 16% higher than the lowest bidder. There was no documentation to justify the higher cost, DiNapoli found.
This lack of documentation afflicted Samaritan Village, one of the biggest nonprofits running city shelters, DiNapoli found.
Samaritan — which has won $308 million in contracts from DHS since 2016 — could not account for 4,171 hours out of the 6,560 it billed the city for security at one shelter on Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn.
Samaritan, like all shelter providers, is required to seek competitive bids for services. In fiscal years 2015 and 2016, Samaritan had no records of bid proposals for $1,071,704 spent on security expenses. Samaritan declined to comment.
“Relying on outside vendors increases the need for strong oversight,” DiNapoli told The News. “The agency (DHS) needs to do a better job of making sure it’s getting what it paid for with taxpayers’ dollars.”
McGinn said DHS is “already implementing the report’s recommendations: retraining providers, better tracking inventory, and more closely scrutinizing contractors performance so that, together, we can hold bad actors accountable.”
Pamoja, the city-funded shelter where Singh was assaulted, is run by the nonprofit Black Veterans for Social Justice, which has received nearly $60 million in DHS shelter contracts since last year. (BVSJ did not return calls seeking comment).
Singh — who was hospitalized after the attack — sued Black Veterans and FJC in March, charging that the guards who attacked him “were violent, dangerous and posed a direct threat to residents” of Pamoja.
“They operate like thugs,” he said. “If you complain, they label you a snitch. They harass you and make up false claims. FJC knows that management, DHS and the NYPD always takes their side.”
Singh said guards at Pamoja “play favorites,” allowing some residents to smuggle in weapons and drugs. “You have to fend for yourself and always be on guard,” he said.
His attorney, Marc Freund of Lipsig Shapey Manus & Moverman, obtained video of the attack and immediately recognized the security firm involved.
In 2013 Freund sued FJC over an incident at the city-funded Tillary Street Women’s Shelter in downtown Brooklyn. There, social worker Valerie Lewis was attacked by an assailant ejected hours earlier for threatening staff.
The jury found FJC had allowed the assailant back in shortly before the attack and awarded Lewis a $13.1 verdict. It was later reduced to $7 million.
In Lewis’ case, FJC “took extraordinary measures to cover up the attack, including deleting the surveillance footage and concealing documents,” Freund said.
“FJC’s general manager of shelter operations testified essentially that FJC had no role in providing security at the shelter other than being the eyes and ears of the staff and calling 911 if a situation arose,” Freund said.
The attack on Singh “highlights that the DHS/FJC dangerous partnership continues to menace the shelter system,” Freund said, calling for “a massive overhaul of the system.”
Last week Angela Burrell, a spokeswoman for FJC’s parent company, Allied Universal, wouldn’t discuss specific lawsuits, noting that the litigation is pending.
Instead, she issued a written statement defending the firm’s overall performance at city shelters: “FJC has staffed each of these locations with trained Security Professionals, whose primary focus is the safety and security of residents, many of whom often confront difficult hardships and challenges. Our staff members pride themselves on providing exceptional service to the community and will continue to strive to work diligently alongside our public partners to serve the homeless population.”
DHS’ McGinn said the conduct exposed by the video “is absolutely unacceptable. The matter was reported to the NYPD Management Team at DHS, who reported it to FJC leadership for disciplinary action. The guard involved was terminated and the supervisor was demoted and removed from FJC’s contract with DHS.”
Singh’s beatdown was the second incident at Pamoja that resulted in a suit against FJC. In September 2015 resident Glenmore Ingram says he was stabbed by a roommate who’d managed to sneak a metal object past the metal detectors run by FJC. Ingram’s suit is pending.
Lax security is a common claim in several suits filed against FJC and Sera. (Last week Sera managers did not answer written questions about the allegations).
Some residents say the firms don’t assign adequate staff. Some say security staff look the other way when residents or shelter staff are assaulted.
Two residents of the Tillary Street Women’s Shelter — the same shelter where Lewis was assaulted in 2009 — have filed separate suits after being brutalized by fellow residents in the last 18 months.
In November 2016, Moraima Goris says she was assaulted by a fellow resident “in an area which was not properly managed.” Eight months later Tillary resident Malder Bartley says she told FJC a fellow shelter client was repeatedly threatening her, but they did nothing. On June 1, she says she was assaulted with fists and a broomstick by her tormenter.
Both of these suits allege FJC was negligent. In one, the city even countersued FJC. Lawyers for both women declined to comment.
Security failures highlighted in the lawsuits bolster concerns recently exposed about what’s really happening inside city shelters.
The News last month revealed that DHS had been hiding from the public hundreds of arrests for serious criminal activities in shelters, including drug dealing and assaults.
Following that April 25 report, the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance ordered DHS to turn over the arrest information.
Three days later the city reversed course and began making shelter arrest data public. In their first report, they revealed there were 674 arrests from January through March.
Nonprofits costing big bucks to run homeless shelters
Since 2008, the city has awarded $5.4 billion in contracts to nonprofit groups to run homeless shelters, the equivalent of writing a $633 check for every man, woman and child in the city. More than half of that — $3.1 billion — has been spent since Mayor de Blasio arrived at City Hall.
Here are the some of the major recipients of these taxpayer dollars:
– Acacia Network Housing: Contracts worth about $521.6 million since April 2016, including $442 million without competitive bidding. The most recent tax forms show seven executives with six-figure salaries.
– Samaritan Village: Contracts worth $308 million since July 2016, including $23.8 million via noncompetitive “emergency” contracts. The most recent tax forms show 11 executives with six-figure salaries.
– SCO Family of Services: Contracts totaling $262.6 million since 2004, including $9.8 million in noncompetitive “emergency” contracts. The most recent tax forms show nine executives with six-figure salaries.
– Camba Housing Ventures: Contracts total $492.9 million since 2004, including $2.1 million in noncompetitive “emergency” contracts. The most recent tax forms show three executives with six-figure salaries, including President Joanne Oplustil with a $612,106 paycheck.
