FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A witness’s video served as evidence of the chaos behind a property conversion in Fort Lauderdale with links to infamous New York City slumlords and a grieving attorney’s ongoing litigation on behalf of seniors and their families.
Advertised as “warm and supportive,” the Oasis Living Quarters, along West Commercial Boulevard, had areas to provide services to seniors in need of memory care, assisted living, and independent living.
Residents have accused Steven Gottlieb, the facility administrator, of the opposite. First, residents said they were forced to move out of the Oasis Living Quarters independent living area.
The residents said they were misled to think it was for a “renovation,” but it was for a conversion to The Waterview Rental, a leasing community --- advertised to have “lavish amenities” and “palatial” apartments.
In March, vulnerable Oasis Living Quarters residents in the assisted living facility area had paid their month’s rent when they attended a “mandatory” meeting a few days later to talk about a move due to “upgrades.”
Related story: Families ‘disgusted’ after seniors told to leave Fort Lauderdale facility
The meeting descended into chaos. A witness shared a video of it. Some were in tears. There was anger and mistrust. A woman fired questions: “Why don’t you just say you are shutting down the place?” and “Are you going to close assisted living and memory care, yes or no?”
The tragic scene had several connections to New York and New Jersey.
Rema Comras, a former Miami Beach resident born in Queens, was among those affected. She had moved there after her husband, Jose Simonet, an immigration judge born in Manhattan, died in 2021.
In 2022, state records show Mark Tress, also known as Moshe Tress from New Jersey, became the title manager of Florida limited liability companies Lauderdale Commercial Blvd Partners and Oasis Living Quarters.
New York City’s public advocate included Tress, who has an arrest record with the Jackson Township Police Department in New Jersey, in the “Worst Landlords of 2024″ watchlist -- ranking him 20th for over 645 open housing violations.
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In June, state records show Sharon Olson became the title authorized member of the Waterview Residences LLC, registered to the same New Jersey address used for Lauderdale Commercial Blvd Partners and Oasis Living Quarters.
Records show the address, 150 Airport Road, Lakewood, Suite 900, is also home to several businesses including the Cedar Development Group and the Cedar Health Group.
Records also show Olson is the title manager of SPV Realty, a Florida limited company associated with the eviction scandal at the Design Place in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.
SPV Realty is registered in Florida to a penthouse at the Ameritania, a hotel in Times Square linked to Olson’s husband, Jay Podolsky, who developed a reputation as an enemy of housing activists in New York City.
Podolsky, a convicted felon, was on probation after a grand larceny and coercion case allegedly involved “professional vacators” that operated as a gang as part of his father‘s real estate tactics in the 80s.
In 2013, The New York Magazine reported that the case had included a woman who had “died of pneumonia in an unheated room” and described how the Podolsky family had “created the homeless supply and profited from the shelter demand.”
In a more recent lawsuit in Broward County court, Comras’s nephew, David Comras, claimed there was a Florida law violation when heartless property owners forced his aunt and other Oasis Living Quarters residents to vacate -- without written notice and in less than 45 days.
Related story: Judge halts eviction at senior living facility amid alleged luxury apartment plan
Most recently, David Comras, a Fort Lauderdale-based attorney, also claimed that there was fraud when opposing counsel produced “fabricated evidence” of a January written notice and Oasis Living Quarters employees’ testimony to the contrary.
A memory haunts David Comras. Before she died, he said he saw the worry in his aunt’s eyes in March after she had learned she had to move out. He blames the property owners’ greed for her death after she moved out from the Oasis Living Quarters ALF. The U.S. Army Special Services veteran was 88.