Woman Fatally Stabbed In Building Which Had Served As A Local Homeless Shelter

(This story was updated with additional information from the City’s Department of Homeless Services, and more details about security concerns. 5/16/16 at 4:15pm)

A young woman was fatally stabbed this weekend in a building which had become a notorious symbol of the City’s inability to provide safe and decent accommodations to homeless families.

Toni Cox, 22, was stabbed to death around 5:30am Saturday morning at 60 Clarkson Avenue in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, just a couple blocks from Prospect Park, police said.

According to news reports, Cox knew her killer. Later the same day, police arrested Alwasi Tyson, 35, of Brownsville, who the New York Post reports was the ex-husband of Cox’s current girlfriend.

Cox’s girlfriend and Tyson got into an argument early Saturday morning, and Tyson then turned on Cox, the Post reports. He stabbed Cox repeatedly in the torso, according to police. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Kings County Hospital.

Tyson has been charged with second-degree murder, four counts of acting in a manner injurious to a child, and criminal possession of a weapon, the NYPD said.

Cox’s murder is the latest incident at the very troubled 60 Clarkson Avenue. Residents have had to contend with a wide variety of on-site problems, including safety issues like un-locked entranceways and violent crimes within the building, according to news reports.

Sixty Clarkson Avenue was profiled by the New York Times last August as an example of the City’s “cluster-site” emergency housing program, which “the city’s Department of Investigation has characterized as by far the most dysfunctional corner of a troubled shelter system.”

The City’s Department of Homeless Services (DHS), the Times reported, had arrangements with about 400 privately owned buildings across the five boroughs in which it paid as much as $3,000 a month, per family, for rent and social services. Over 3,000 homeless families were being housed this way last summer, the Times said.

According to the Legal Aid Society, 60 Clarkson Avenue’s owner, Barry Hers (whose office is located at 1268 52nd Street in Borough Park) began to receive payments from the City to house homeless families roughly six years ago.

Tenants in the building, which is rent-stabilized, told the Times last year that long-term residents fled as conditions steadily deteriorated after Hers began to take in homeless families.

Attempts to reach Hers were unsuccessful. The building has reportedly accumulated hundreds of violations over the years, for issues such as roach infestations, mold, and leaks.

Residents also raised security and “disorder” issues with the Times, as did a NYPD spokesman, who noted that police were frequently called to the building. There apparently was a full-time security guard at 60 Clarkson Avenue, but Hers told the Times that cutbacks in City payments forced him to pay for a guard out of his own pocket.

After Saturday’s murder, a long-time neighborhood resident, Janice Thomas, 62, told the Post that since the building began to serve as a shelter, “there are shootings, stabbings, they’re doing drugs, prostituting, credit card scams.”

Last summer, Hers attempted to remove the homeless families living at 60 Clarkson Avenue and transfer them to other buildings he owned. Tenants rights groups charged at the time that Hers wanted to take in new, higher paying tenants because the area was rapidly gentrifying.

In October, the City helped 14 of the homeless families at 60 Clarkson Avenue transition to permanent homes, three moved on their own, and 20 were transferred to new shelters, according to sources familiar with the case.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeless Services told us that the City terminated its relationship with 60 Clarkson Avenue on October 31st, 2015.

Twenty-two formerly homeless families are still trying to remain in the building.

On the day before Thanksgiving, a number of residents, all of them former shelter residents, received eviction notices. Since the beginning of November, residents had been dealing with a lack of heat and utility shutoffs, Ditmas Park Corner reported. Residents were asked to vacate the building by December 31st.

The Legal Aid Society has fought back, saying that the families, many of which have been living in the building for several years, now qualify as rent-stabilized tenants and have the protection of the law on their side.