Posted on November 4, 2016 by Nathan Tempey in Gothamist Gothamist, By Nathan Tempey The Hersko family is getting out of the homeless shelter business, but not exactly by choice. Starting about a decade ago, Barry Hersko (a.k.a. Barry Hers, a.k.a. Barry Hershko) began converting apartments in eight apartment buildings he owns into homeless shelter units under the city’s then-ballooning cluster-site program. The math was obvious: the buildings, rent-stabilized in central Brooklyn neighborhoods, were often bringing in less than a thousand dollars an apartment, and by the time the Department of Homeless Services pulled out this summer, Hersko, a man named Sam Klein who owns two other buildings, and a nonprofit run at one point by his brother Isaac were bringing in rents around $3,000 a month an apartment, even as residents endured mice, roaches, collapsing ceilings, exposed wires, peeling lead paint, and mold. Residents of Hersko’s buildings also say they rarely received the social services that were supposed to hasten their trips out of the shelter system.
