A 94-year-old US Army veteran is blasting his Staten Island assisted living home for kicking him out then cutting a deal to welcome migrants — saying it’s “not fair” he was sent packing.
Frank Tammaro was given less than two months’ notice he and 53 other seniors would have to move out of Island Shores Residences in March, and had to make other living arrangements.
“I felt horrible,” Tammaro, a lifelong New Yorker, told Fox News. “It’s no joke getting thrown out of a house.”
He then moved into another facility, but after he fell, he and his daughter Barbara Annunziata decided it would be best for him to move in with her and her children.
It was in her care that the family discovered that Island Shores was being converted into migrant housing — and would not reopen as another assisted living facility as they were promised.
“I don’t understand it at all,” Annunziata said. “It’s not fair to anybody.
“These migrants, they’re getting everything. They’re getting everything and I can’t get nothing for [Tammaro],” she said, adding that she has been having trouble getting insurance to pay for a home health aide.
“Meanwhile, [migrants] get everything. And he’s not entitled to anything.”
GOP leaders from the borough have slammed the city and the nonprofit that owns the facility for what they called a “shady deal” to house migrants.
“The City of New York has been employing a practice of opening migrant shelters and placing migrants into shelters under the cover of darkness,” Assemblyman Michael Tannousis said (R-East Shore/Brooklyn), at a press conference on Sept. 21.
“They are not keeping the community apprised, and they are not keeping the elected officials apprised. This has caused a sense of panic amongst the constituency.”
Homes for the Homeless, the new owners of the building, told Fox News it intended to sell Island Shores “to focus on its core mission of serving homeless families” and the preferred buyer “would be another senior operator.”
However, Homes for the Homeless then made an agreement in August with City Hall to move migrants into the facility, which is now known as the Midland Beach Migrant Center.
The Department of Social Services (DSS) spokesman told the Staten Island Advance in September the former senior living facility would be turned into a migrant shelter for 113 families with private rooms and meal services.
The decision led outraged Staten Islanders to protest in front of the shelter, with some physically blocking the arrival of an MTA bus carrying asylum seekers.
The group of protesters halted traffic after intercepting the bus on Sept. 19. A total of 10 people were taken into custody, with nine being issued summonses for disorderly conduct.
A 48-year-old man, identified as Vadim Belyakov, was charged for allegedly assaulting an officer who was trying to make an arrest.
Mayor Adams called the chaotic demonstration an “ugly display” put on by a very small group of New Yorkers.
But one protestor, Sal Monforte, who lives 200 feet from the shelter, insisted to The Post the demonstration was peaceful – until cops arrived and turned the “scene into a riot.”
“People were getting arrested for no reason. The 10 people that got arrested last night should never have gotten arrested,” the 59-year-old retired construction worker said.
Tammaro, the Army vet, agreed that the decision by the facility to turn Island Shores into migrant housing “was done behind closed doors.”
At first, he said, residents were told the senior center would reopen under new management.
“We didn’t have a chance to actually make any attempt to stop them because there wasn’t enough time,” Tammaro said at a September news conference, as 15 asylum-seeking families moved into the building.
Still, Tammaro — who worked for the US Army Signal Corps, a branch of the Army that manages information systems, and served stateside during the Korean War — said he tried to fight back.
“I said, ‘No, no, no, you are not moving me,’” he recounted. “They replied, ‘Yes, yes, yes, we are.’”
“I was satisfied where I was until they threw me out,” Tammaro explained. “But making the best of a bad situation, that’s what we’re doing.”
He said he mostly feels bad for the other former residents of Island Shores, which included seven other veterans.
“I was not in combat,” Tammaro said. “But these boys that went over and went into combat — and now they’re all settled in there with their lives and everything else — and they’re all disrupted, it isn’t fair.”
But Annunziata said she remains angry at how her father was treated.
“They’re worried about the migrants more than they’re worried about the US citizens,” she said.
Homes for the Homeless declined to comment Thursday.
