It has come to our attention that minority shareholder David Elder and Manager Andrew Tilley may be taking a survey of all the elderly people in the Chelsea to see if any are vulnerable to court action. Presumably, they are looking for such things as cluttered or unsanitary living conditions, disabilities, or deteriorating physical or mental health that would allow them to move to evict elderly residents in housing court. We have already seen at least two residents charged with clutter: one of these cases ended satisfactorily when a helpful younger resident cleaned the older person’s apartment; the other case was apparently put on hold when the elderly resident collaborated with management in testifying against another resident.
Elder and Tilley are also reportedly planning to start a publicity campaign to make it appear that they are actually helping the seniors (this campaign is reportedly in a fairly advanced stage of implementation; it’s not just hot air at this point). There are no shortage of “charities” that prey on the elderly with the aim of receiving an estate gift, and Tilley and Elder would presumably try to work with one or more of these organizations to have seniors declared incompetent and committed to a state-run nursing home. “Oh, they were living in horrible conditions,” would no doubt be management’s cynical propaganda line, “and we helped them to improve their quality of life.” So Elder and Tilley come off smelling like roses, while the hotel’s responsibility for providing decent housing is sloughed off onto the public agencies.
I would say to Elder and Tilley: Have you no shame? Don’t you have older relatives, parents and grandparents, yourselves? But obviously we can just ask Piri Thomas about how Elder treats his parents.
This is a difficult issue to discuss, as we want to be extra careful to protect the privacy of elderly residents. However, one case is particularly pressing, and needs to be addressed immediately, and that is the case of Stormé DeLarverié. Although Stormé, who is known and loved by everyone at the hotel, is 89-years-old, she is still strong and gets around fine, and, though sometimes she forgets minor things, she is lucid and coherent when she speaks. Stormé is living in a rent stabilized apartment for $600 per month, $550 of which was until recently paid by a charitable organization (they’re not all bad, after all). She receives Social Security and until recently was paying the rest of her rent out of that. In the past year, however, two problems have cropped up: first of all, Stormé lost her wallet, so she has no ID and hence can’t cash her Social Security checks; secondly, the charitable organization has not paid its share of Stormé’s rent for several month because of the dilapidated condition of Storme’s apartment, and because they don’t believe she is eating enough (she is probably attempting to conserve money since she can’t cash her checks). Stormé now owes $8400 in back rent.
The hotel is responsible for fixing Stormé’s apartment, but apparently they would like to get out of it. David Elder is reportedly using a sometime tenant whom he placed in a compromising position to call people, old friends of Storme, to convince them she needs to be in a nursing home. Elder and Tilley have reportedly met with two non-profit organizations—for now we will refrain from naming them—to discuss ways to get Stormé’s money out of her and have her committed. We have also received information to the effect that the hotel intends to go to court very soon with a non-payment case against Stormé. Their publicity campaign will no doubt portray the hotel management as the good guys trying to get help for this poor old woman who nobody else cares about.
But obviously that’s absolute baloney. Plenty of people at the hotel are looking after her. Stormé had Thanksgiving dinner with a family at the hotel. Another resident has established an account for her at the Aristocrat Deli so that she can get anything she wants should she ever be short of cash. Residents visited her when she was in the hospital recently for a mild infection. One of the members of our Tenant’s Association has already been in touch with a charitable food service, and they will start bringing her meals. The same charitable organization that was helping with her rent bought her clothes. Residents will chip in and pay her rent too, should that become necessary. And now that residents have become aware of the ID problem, we will work with her to make sure she gets a new one, and that she retains control of her money. We will be looking to make sure that she gets her room repaired too, as the hotel is legally required to do, so that the charitable organization can be persuaded to resume their support.
Until his unjust ouster, Stanley Bard worked closely with the charitable organization, calling them every month, to get the rent money for Stormé, but apparently no one has bothered to contact them since. If Andrew Tilley is so concerned about Stormé’s wellbeing, why has he not contacted the charitable organization? And if he really wants to help Stormé, why can’t he just fix up her apartment!? Tilley is simply attempting to shift the responsibility of the landlord onto the public agencies.
Stormé is an integral, valued member of the Chelsea community. In addition, for those of you who are unaware, Stormé is a gay rights activist who had a prominent role in founding the gay rights movement at Stonewall. In other words, she is someone who gave willingly of herself so that others might live meaningful, fulfilling lives free of discrimination and harassment. She’s a rare individual worth ten money-grubbing Tilleys, and a hundred Elders. Storme herself is well aware of her precarious situation: “When you get old, they try to put you in a home,” she told us recently. “That’s a hell of a thing to do to somebody just because they’re old. I wouldn’t do that to a dog.” It’s up to us to make sure they don’t get away with it—either in Stormé’s case, or with any of the other valued senior members of our community. — Ed Hamilton
Living with Legends 
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