The owner of a Queens furniture store that was illegally converted into a boarding house for immigrants was also operating a similar temporary shelter in the Bronx and was raided on Wednesday, officials and people familiar with the matter said.
A commercial building on East Kingsbridge Road in the city’s Fordham neighborhood was evacuated by FDNY and Department of Buildings officials after 45 beds were found packed tightly together on the ground floor and basement, the DOB said. It is said that it was done.
Eight people were inside when authorities arrived, officials said.
Building inspectors found extension cords, electric bicycles, space heaters and hot plates scattered around the temporary sleeping area. This comes less than two days after authorities discovered a South Richmond Hill property with similar living conditions.
The DOB issued an eviction order to a former cell phone store-turned-hostel building in the Bronx, citing “life-threatening hazardous conditions, lack of natural light and ventilation, and severe overcrowding.”
The department also issued two violations against the landlord for failing to maintain the building and for occupying the building contrary to city records.
Migrants, mostly from Senegal, were ordered to gather their belongings and leave the country.
Dozens of people with suitcases waited on the sidewalk in the rain, assisted by city emergency management officials. On Wednesday night, about eight to 10 migrants departed on MTA buses along with emergency management officials.
Law enforcement officials say the person responsible for the illegal conversion is the same person who packed 40 beds into the basement of Searle’s Wholesale Furniture in Queens, where Senegalese immigrants often slept in shifts.
Business owner Ebou Saar, 47, admitted that he charged each man a $300 monthly “contribution” to live in a small hostel.
“They don’t even have relatives here, they have nowhere to go, they sleep on trains and on the streets,” Sarr told The Post on Tuesday about the Queens location. “That’s why we have to intervene.”
Immigrants at the Bronx store told the Post they were charged $300 a month for a cramped bedroom in the storefront next to Sar’s Juice Bar & Grill. According to local residents, the temporary shelter was once a closed telephone store.
Adama Ka, 25, said she first lived in the store in Queens and has been sleeping there for the past two months before being asked to come to the Bronx building. He originally lived in a city shelter, but was kicked out one night for being late and ended up living on the streets for a week.
“If I had known this was going to happen in the United States, I wouldn’t have come,” Carr told the Post as she was left on the sidewalk in the rain on Wednesday. “There was a good place there, but on TV it shows this is a better place. It’s not. It’s not what I saw on TV.”
The FDNY and DOB first responded to the address after complaints were filed that more than 60 people were living at the storefront and were being billed $300 a month by Searle.
Mayor Eric Adams acknowledged in an interview with CBS 2 News Wednesday that city officials believe the person in charge of both locations is the same person.
“People are exploiting people in need,” he said, referring to the $300 bill.
With 45 beds, Searle, also from Senegal, would be bringing in about $13,500 a month — and that’s if only one person occupied the bed.
Immigrants renting beds at a Queens furniture store often sleep in shifts, with up to 80 people and up to $24,000 a month, fire officials told the Post.
Searle said Tuesday that the money will be used to buy buildings where everyone can live legally, and insisted he is helping asylum seekers who have no relatives in the U.S. and nowhere to go.
“I’m helping them,” Searle said. “I give them a place to stay. Some of the people who heard me didn’t even go to the shelter. They were coming straight to me.”
A Bronxville manager claimed that Searle broke into a vacant store and added beds without his knowledge. According to PIX11.
The building’s owner did not immediately respond to The Post’s inquiries.
On Wednesday night, contractors took down the storefront gate and drilled in the bolts.
