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<\/a><\/p>\nBy John Heinis\/Hudson County View<\/p>\n
\u201cRoach infestations, mice infestations, missing kitchen appliances, charging a hundred dollars for late rent when Jersey City\u2019s maximum is 35, random $400 court fees in your portal when you never been to court, charging market rate rent without an exemption from rent control,\u201d Bergen Grand Tenant Association President Liv Malone said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The Bergen Grand Tenant Association at 429 Bergen Ave. held a rally Saturday to announce that they will be withholding rent until their demands are met.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the building was deemed to be covered by Jersey City\u2019s rent stabilization ordinance, retroactive to 2019 with only legal increases from that time, which Amir Ben-Yohanon, the landlord, has not reflected in charges to tenants.<\/p>\n
The building is rent-controlled and was purchased by the current landlord, Bergen Ave Investments, run by Ben-Yohanan.<\/p>\n
In the winter of 2024-2025, city inspectors from Jersey City\u2019s Quality of Life Taskforce issued many citations to the landlord after his other Jersey City property, owned through a different LLC (West of Hudson Realty Group), 35 Kensington, after the tenants went six weeks without heat.<\/p>\n
According to municipal court records, there is a warrant for Ben-Yohanan\u2019s arrest in East Orange for breaking the law in regards to: \u201csuperintendents in dwellings,\u201d \u201chot and cold water,\u201d and \u201csanitation and safety of dwelling\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s what I think: if we are bleeding financially, they should bleed financially. There have always been more tenants than landlords, more of us than them. When we move this way, understanding our power, withholding our rent money, anticipating their reaction and empty retaliation tactics, landlords are put back in check,\u201d Malone added.<\/p>\n
An organizer for the Jersey City Tenants Union, Eli K. (he declined to give his last name), echoed a similar sentiment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmir Ben-Yohanon is a slumlord. Tenants at 35 Kensington went the whole month of December without heat, tenants at 150 Belmont don\u2019t have heat right now. He\u2019s overcharging you all, he\u2019s not fixing anything, but he\u2019s got money to build this new development over on Communipaw,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here to come after everyone, every single landlord who is taking the fruit of our labor, half our paycheck just for us to have a roof over our head. But Amir in particular is a blight on tenants and we want him to hear loud and clear that this is gonna stop \u2026 We know what buildings this man owns, we are gonna be talking to those tenants. If he\u2019s your landlord come talk to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben-Yohanan is also the owner of several businesses including 859-869 Communipaw Ave which recently received $30 million in financing, according to The Real Deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Jersey City Ward B council candidate Joel Brooks, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, said the city must due better for their tenants.<\/p>\n \u201cI was a rent control tenant for nine years and it took me almost that length of time to actually pay the legal rent. The system is broken for tenants in Jersey City. There\u2019s two sides, there\u2019s tenants and there\u2019s landlords,\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are the majority in Jersey City, we\u2019re going to flex our muscles. Tenants all over Jersey City, you can organize in your building. All it takes is knocking on the doors of your neighbors, a few over for coffee, Jersey City Tenant Union \u2013 talk to them.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not the first time Jersey City tenants have complained about the living conditions of Ben-Yohanan\u2019s buildings.<\/p>\n Residents of 35 Kensington Ave. and 150 Belmont Ave. complained of no heat, water damage, a broken elevator, and more, on Christmas Eve last year, as HCV first reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ben-Yohanan did not return an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n In 2020, he founded the influencer management company, Clubhouse Media Group.<\/p>\n According to a 2021 Daily Mail<\/a> report, \u201cCMG offers young influencers the opportunity to stay rent-free at so-called \u2018content mansions\u2019 in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Europe in exchange for creating branded social media content.\u201d<\/p>\n The influencers, who were as young as 15, say he bullied them, forced them to go on dates, and made misogynistic comments about their periods.<\/p>\n Ben-Yohanan later sued the teenage girls for defamation for over $2.5 million, as Business Insider<\/a> reported. CMG was acquired by Tonji Healthcare Group in August 2020<\/a> and taken public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tenants on Jersey City\u2019s west side declared a rent strike over the weekend, exclaiming that their landlord is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[17390,17391,17392,17393,17394,17395,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-27612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-429-bergen-ave","tag-amir-ben-yohanon","tag-bergen-grand-tenant-association","tag-jersey-city-tenants-union","tag-joel-brooks","tag-liv-malone","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}