A 94-year-old Army veteran and lifelong New Yorker has been kicked out of a New York City nursing home where he has lived for the past five years to make way for migrants.
Frank Tammaro called the eviction from the Island Shores Residence independent living facility — his home where he had many friends and activities he enjoyed — “shameful.”
The army veteran – along with 53 other residents – was notified in September 2022 and told to pack their bags and be gone by March.
When he was forced to leave, Tammaro said he was moved to another facility, but after falling at the center he had to move again to his daughter’s home, where he now lives permanently.
He blames politicians for the growing migrant problem, adding: “Everything happened behind closed doors.”
Frank Tammaro called the eviction from the Island Shores Residence independent living facility, his home where he had many friends and activities he enjoyed, “disgraceful”
Island Shores Senior Residence located at 1111 Father Capodanno Boulevard on Staten Island was converted into a migrant shelter
Tammaro blames politicians for the growing migrant crisis
In an interview with Fox newsTammaro said, “First of all, I have nothing against the migrants if they came in like my grandparents did – they came from Ellis Island, they were screened and they were allowed to come into the United States and they had to have a job.
“These people come in and get the cream of the crop. I don’t think it’s fair at all.
Laughing, he added, “They come in and get stacks of money. I don’t get as much as they do.’
Tammaro said he felt “bitter” at first, and even now he still gets upset when he sees the migrants getting all these things while he pays taxes.
“It really upsets me when I see them handing out all this money and all this stuff, while I’m paying taxes and getting kicked out,” he said. ‘I never got anything from the city. Or the state.’
His daughter, Barbara Annunziata, told the news station “it makes me angry.”
‘These migrants get everything and I do I can’t get anything for him,” she said.
Island Shores officials told residents the nursing home was being sold but would reopen. Tammaro also said that when he and others asked questions, and when migrants came in, they were left in the dark.
‘They told us they were restructuring. They never said we would get migrants.”
He said the ordeal was frightening when he heard he had to get out and the clock was ticking. ‘It was scary. I didn’t know where I was going.’
Tammaro said that before he was evicted, he tried to fight back. I said“no… no… no… you’re not moving me.”
He said, they replied, ‘yes… yes… yes… we are,'” he told Fox News.
Homes for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization based in New York, was the owner of the new facility, the former home of Island Shores Senior Residence located at 1111 Father Capodanno Boulevard on Staten Island.
In a statement, the nonprofit said it planned to sell Island Shores “to focus on its core mission of helping homeless families” and that the preferred buyer “would be another senior operator.”
Tammaro’s daughter said she “knew something was going to happen there.”
“They kept saying, ‘Oh, they’re going to sell it. They’re going to sell it.’ That’s what they kept telling me,” she told Fox News.
In August, Tammaro and his daughter learned that Homes for the Homeless had made an arrangement with City Hall to move migrants to Island Shores, the news station reported.
Island Shores was one of 200 buildings converted into emergency shelters for nearly 140,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City since October 2022.
Fifteen asylum seeker families moved into the former nursing home in September.
The migrants line up outside a hotel in downtown Manhattan with all their belongings
Tammaro’s daughter Barbara Annunziata said: ‘we knew something was going on’
The influx of asylum seekers has stretched the city’s budget and many of its services to the limit.
Tamarro worked for the US Army Signal Corps, a branch of the military that manages information systems, and worked between military camps during the Korean War.
Wearing a Korean War cap on his head, Tammaro said it’s “not fair” what his comrades are dealing with at this point in their lives.
“I wasn’t in the battle, but these guys who went out there and fought the battle – and now they’re all sitting there with their lives and everything else – and they’re all disrupted.”
On Tuesday, DailyMail.com reported on the hundreds of asylum seekers along 7th Street and Avenue B in Lower Manhattan.
Many had already waited several days for temporary housing after being kicked out of shelters under Mayor Eric Adam’s 30-day limit for single adults.
The Democrat imposed shelter-in-place orders to ease the situation, but now migrants looking to extend their stay have overwhelmed the East Village street outside the former St. Brigid School.
Racial tensions are also increasing between asylum seekers from Latin America and Africa. Both groups claim they are being discriminated against.
DailyMail.com contacted Homes for the Homeless, but they were unavailable.