Florida senior living home tied to infamous New York landlords

A Fort Lauderdale senior living home that skirted state and local regulations by removing all of its residents to convert to luxury apartments last month is connected to a family of notorious New York landlords.

Jay Podolsky, a convicted felon, and his son, Lee, were instrumental in operating Oasis Living Quarters beginning in 2022 and transforming much of it into what is now Waterview Rental luxury apartments, according to former employees, residents and public records. Starting last year, elderly residents were forced to move multiple times without notice under the guise of “renovations” while their quality of life deteriorated to the point that many decided to leave of their own volition. Then, in March, all who remained were informed they had to leave with no written notice, according to residents, family members and a state inspection report.

In the last month, a Broward County judge issued an injunction against Oasis and the state Agency for Healthcare Administration cited them for failing to provide 45 days’ written notice to residents prior to shutting down. The facility was also issued a stop-work order from the city of Fort Lauderdale due to renovations made without a permit. By then, half of the property was already converted to luxury apartments and nearly all of the former residents had moved out.

The conversion of Oasis wouldn’t be the Podolsky family’s first foray into removing unwanted tenants. In 1984, Jay, his brother Stuart, and their father, Zenek, pleaded guilty to 37 felonies including grand larceny and coercion after prosecutors said they paid men to terrorize residents into leaving their Manhattan apartments by assaulting, robbing, or vandalizing them while moving in prostitutes and drug dealers. Jay and Stuart Podolsky were sentenced to probation while their father was sentenced to 90 days.

The brothers got into the business of housing New York City’s homeless in their hotels, receiving tens of millions of dollars from the city government. Federal prosecutors investigated them in 2019 over suspected tax fraud in connection to their company Amsterdam Hospitality Group, the Wall Street Journal reported, though no charges were filed. The firm, owned by Jay and Stuart Podolsky, bought properties used to house the homeless, according to media reports. At least two employees listed in its phone directory also helped manage Oasis, according to former employees who worked under them.

The Podolsky family’s connection to Oasis has largely been kept out of the public eye. Though residents and employees saw Jay and Lee regularly, their names do not appear in most public records for the facility, obscured by various limited liability companies and lower-level employees. The Podolskys were in charge, but it was the facility’s administrator, Steven Gottlieb, who announced the controversial removal of tenants last month and met with AHCA over the violations, attributing the dwindling number of residents to “a lot of deaths” and a mean nurse, according to an agency report. Gottlieb told the inspector that he never attended the meeting.

Attorneys for Oasis are now seeking to have the injunction vacated, saying that the facility did in fact give residents 45 days’ written notice in January and providing a picture of a flyer that they say was taped to residents’ doors and in common areas, according to an emergency motion filed last Thursday. No residents described seeing such a notice in interviews with the AHCA inspector or the Sun Sentinel. Nor did the inspector. When the inspector asked the administrator, Gottlieb, for such a 45-day notice last month, he failed to provide one, according to the report.

While Oasis recently made the news over the exodus of residents, its decline began close to three years ago when the Podolskys first took over, then gradually stripped residents of their food choices, amenities and then their homes, according to information gleaned from over a dozen former residents, family members and employees in the AHCA report and in interviews with the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Even if they had not been forced out, many residents said they wanted to leave. By the time Oasis shuttered, some could no longer eat the meals, which had dwindled from an array of choices to one increasingly lackluster option. Management had fired the bus drivers who took them to medical appointments, residents and family members said in interviews and to the AHCA inspector. The social activities that had once been offered were all gone. At the same time, the landlords continued to move in new tenants, some of whom had been there only a month before they were told to leave.

Employees and residents alike feared speaking out in case they would be forced to leave. Some still do. Several former employees asked that their names not be used over concerns about retaliation that could affect their careers.

“Nobody knows, until they’ve actually lived through it, how horrible people can be,” said Charlotte Machlus, 85, who moved out last September after living at Oasis for 10 years.

Neither Jay or Lee Podolsky responded to requests for comment for this article. A man who answered a phone number associated with Lee Podolsky said a reporter had the wrong number and did not return a text. Attorneys for the company that owns Oasis did not return calls or emails, nor did two Amsterdam Hospitality Group employees who had worked for the Podolskys at Oasis.

A veiled connection

Though Jay and Lee Podolsky were well known among the employees and residents at Oasis, their connection to the facility is obscured in public records behind a series of LLCs and the use of Jay’s wife’s maiden name rather than his own.

Oasis was purchased in October 2022 by a company called Lauderdale Commercial Blvd Partners LLC, according to property records. The only name connected to the company is Mark Tress, another New York landlord who, last year, was named one of the 100 worst landlords in New York City and sued by the city over falling debris at his properties. Tress told the Sun Sentinel last month that “we no longer manage this property for ownership” but did not respond to questions about the identity of the owner. Residents and employees did not recall ever seeing Tress or hearing his name mentioned.

Ownership of the new luxury apartments at Oasis traces back to Jay Podolsky’s wife, Sharon Olson, rather than Jay or Lee. Olson is the listed registered agent for Waterview Residences LLC, the company behind Waterview Residences, the luxury apartments that have replaced the senior living facility. Waterview Residences and Lauderdale Commercial Blvd Partners LLC have been jointly listed as the landlords in nine eviction suits at the address dating back to last December.

Wives’ maiden names have long been used in the Podolsky family’s dealings. In a 1999 legal dispute over a hotel purchase, a “court-appointed referee found it ‘credible’ that Jay and his brother Stuart were ‘the real players’ in the disputed transaction and that their use of their wives’ maiden names in that instance ‘was to avoid state/city scrutiny’ owing to their felony convictions,” New York Magazine reported in 2013. The Podolskys’ attorney, David Satnick, denied this at the time, saying that the Podolskys are “passive owners” and their wives are the real investors.

When it came to Oasis, Lee Podolsky was meant to be more directly involved while Jay, the convicted felon, remained behind the scenes, employees recalled. But multiple employees recalled seeing Jay more often.

Before Oasis, the Podolsky family had already made headlines in the South Florida real estate world. A different company called SPV Realty, also in Olson’s name, currently owns the Design Place apartment complex in Miami and filed dozens of eviction suits against residents during the pandemic, according to media reports.

‘Like living in a TV show’

In 2022, the Podolsky-affiliated company, Lauderdale Commercial Blvd Partners, purchased Oasis from what was once Wickshire Fort Lauderdale, hiring a company called 428 Health Care LLC to manage the property. That same management company is also behind the Oasis senior living facilities in Margate and Boynton Beach, where it has recently run into trouble. The state halted admissions at the Boynton Beach location earlier this month due in part to a widespread cockroach infestation causing health concerns.

Jonathan Frankel, the company’s CEO, said Friday that the Florida Department of Health recently cleared the location of all violations, that the kitchen had reopened and the facility is “pest free.”

As soon as the Podolskys and their new managers took over, the Fort Lauderdale Oasis began to go downhill, according to interviews with former employees and residents, multiple AHCA reports, and allegations in a Broward County lawsuit between the owners and 428 Health Care.

The management company had originally sued Oasis’ owners in August 2023, claiming wrongful termination. Oasis then counter-sued. In their notice of termination, Oasis accused 428 Health Care of “gross negligence,” saying that they were responsible for the facility “falling into disrepair, leading to AHCA complaints.” Other allegations included an employee making racist and sexist comments and compromised security of the memory care unit.

A day after Oasis notified 428 Health Care of termination on July 5, 2023, an AHCA inspector visited the facility and found that residents in the memory care unit had been living with air conditioning units “completely broken” on the second floor for at least a week, before “some repairs” allowed temperatures to reach just under 80 degrees. Two bathrooms on the first floor had been out of order for months, according to a staff member. Multiple employees also had no evidence of completing required background screenings.

428 Health Care fired back, arguing that the facility “never fell into disrepair.” Their attorneys also cited issues with Lee Podolsky, saying in a response letter that “Oasis Living specifically required that Lee Podolsky personally approve all accounts payable prior to payment,” which led to delays, and that Oasis terminated a well-liked executive director who Podolsky did not get along with.

The case was settled last August.

Both Frankel and 428 Health Care’s chairman, Moshe Soskin, declined to comment in response to questions about the Podolskys or Oasis Friday, citing the settlement.

Another AHCA visit in March 2024 looked into an incident involving a resident found lying on the floor in his room. One employee had discovered him, checked his pulse, then called another employee for help. They called 911 and used a defibrillator on him, according to the report. Both employees dealt directly with residents and gave them medications, but neither had first aid or other required trainings documented in their files.

“The facility failed to ensure that staff providing life-saving services to residents received First Aid and (redacted) training/or had the required training/or certification,” the report reads.

The working environment at Oasis frequently left senior employees paranoid, even after leaving, they said. Employees would report one another’s behavior to higher-ups. Morning meetings frequently devolved into arguments. The facility went through several different management companies, Machlus, the former resident, recalled.

“It was such a toxic environment,” one senior level employee told the Sun Sentinel. “It was so bizarre. It was like living in a TV show.”

Costs cut, residents moved

While Gottlieb and others were the ones who typically relayed orders, Jay and Lee Podolsky also regularly spent time on the premises.

From the beginning of their tenure, the Podolskys had been upset about Oasis’ low occupancy level, one senior employee recalled, another issue mentioned in the lawsuit with 428 Health Care. A series of cost-cutting measures began soon after. The first thing Machlus noticed was the food changing: Residents could no longer order chicken salad, which they often asked for if there was nothing on the menu they liked. Then they stopped having Friday night Shabbat dinners. Management started charging residents for taking anything from the dining room, even a piece of fruit. By March, when many residents already had moved out, the meals were so limited that those with dietary restrictions could no longer eat.

Several residents complained about the food in the recent AHCA report. One resident said “they have just one item on the food menu, and you don’t have a choice.” Another “stated they have cut (redacted) on the food and were doing lousy things with people” and that “they don’t have transportation anymore as they fired the bus driver.” And another said that Gottlieb told them at the meeting announcing their removal that “they are renovating, and that there will be no more AL, MCU (Memory Care Unit), no food service, no buses.”

Jay Podolsky rarely spoke to rank-and-file employees but sometimes would come in and yell at people, according to multiple former employees. A former dining room manager remembered him entering the kitchen on one occasion and telling them to cut down the burgers they served to the size of a slider because the regular burger was too big. Another senior level employee recalled that he once suggested firing a dining employee for serving residents too much bacon.

A few months after the changes began, residents discovered the identities of the facility’s new owners. A husband and wife had seen the New York Magazine article about the Podolsky family’s history. Word spread, and a flyer began to circulate with the information from the article. Shortly after that, the couple who originally found the article were given a 45-day notice to leave, according to residents and several employees. The wife confirmed the details but declined to speak to the Sun Sentinel, saying she and her husband didn’t want to live through that experience again.

By May 2024, management under the Podolskys had begun moving residents. All of the independent living residents were sent into the assisted living side, told they had to relocate for temporary “renovations” and they could return once they were completed, according to several residents, employees and the AHCA report.

Then, out of the blue, a zebra-print wall went up, the kind you’d see in a hotel, Machlus said, separating the residents on the assisted living side from the independent living side.

“They told the residents it was to protect them from the flies,” recalled the former dining room manager, who had worked at the facility for over 15 years before Oasis terminated her last year. “But that didn’t make any sense.”

With the new wall came new restrictions: Residents on the assisted living side could no longer walk to the independent living side. Meanwhile, the construction continued. The library became a hallway. The beauty salon disappeared. Costs continued to be cut, according to employees. The gym no longer had any equipment. The call lights that residents needed to press for assistance stopped working but weren’t replaced. A scale that medical staff used to weigh residents broke, and instead of replacing it, employees were told to drag a scale from building to building.

Employees began to leave of their own volition or were terminated. Senior employees were sent an email telling them to get rid of three people from each of their departments. Overtime became forbidden; all schedules had to be approved by Lee Podolsky, according to one senior employee. Already short-staffed dining room employees were cut further, leaving residents waiting longer and longer for meals, according to multiple employees.

“You guys want us to do a good service,” the former dining room manager said. “You can’t do a good service of 100 residents with four people.”

On the other side of the wall, the independent living building became Waterview luxury apartments. The gym on that side was furnished with new equipment. The pool that senior residents used was now to be shared with families and children.

Jay Podolsky frequently visited Oasis during the renovations, a former senior level employee said, though she was told “never to talk to him directly” and to contact Lee only during emergencies.

The owners did not obtain permits for the construction at the property, according to the city.

The city already issued a stop-work order at Oasis earlier this month after an inspector found substantial construction work had been done without a permit, including new A/C units, demolished kitchenettes, and removed hallway and corridor partitions. The city has not yet received a response to the order. A compliance hearing is set for May 27.

Waterview Rentals also never registered as a business with the city of Fort Lauderdale, officials confirmed last Wednesday, despite the fact that it is actively operating with tenants living there.

City officials are investigating whether there were any code violations on the property that is already operating as Waterview, according to city spokeswoman Christine Portela.

“Our investigation into Waterview Rentals is ongoing as we work to identify the specific alterations to the building and cite them accordingly,” Portela said.

Already, some residents at Waterview have run into trouble. On April 15, the landlords filed eviction suits against five of them. One told the Sun Sentinel she had just moved into her apartment in February. This past month, she was late on rent because she lost a patient in her line of work. After she paid partial rent, she “sensed something was weird” when Waterview served her with eviction papers and began charging her $75 for each day she doesn’t pay, something she’s never dealt with before in past apartments.

By the end of the month, she will end up paying more than $1,000 in late fees.

“I have a small child,” she said. “I can’t afford to be put out. I gave them everything I had.”

Oasis claims it provided notice

With some of Oasis’ residents and employees forced out, others leaving on their own, the entire senior living facility was shut in early April, following a meeting in which Gottlieb informed them again of “renovations.”

Oasis is now seeking to have the court injunction vacated, saying in an emergency motion that it bars the facility from its Constitutional right to petition to remove its residents.

The motion claims that residents were told, in writing, of their removal in January, which would be sufficient 45 days’ notice.

“This letter serves as formal notification that your residency at Oasis Living Quarters will be terminated, effective 45 days from the date of this letter,” the flyer, which attorneys say was posted on residents’ doors, reads. The letter’s “Reason for Termination/Relocation” states that “The kitchen and corridors will be updated and for safety and wellbeing everyone will need to find a new place until future notice.”

But several residents and employees told the AHCA inspector as well as the Sun Sentinel that they had not received anything in writing during the visit in March.

Gottlieb himself did not mention such a notice to the inspector. He did tell the inspector that he had a copy of a 45 days’ notice, but then provided a flyer with the subject “Dining Room and Area Improvements.”

“Upon review of the document (in the presence of the Administrator), he was informed that the letter was not a 45-day notice, that it did not inform Residents of a closing, or give them a deadline by which they had to move,” the AHCA report states. “Rather, it stated they would be enjoying a renovated facility. He stated that it was a 45-day notice, so this surveyor asked him to review the letter and identify where the 45-day language was. Upon reviewing the letter, he gave no response.”

Machlus, the former Oasis resident, ended up moving out in September 2024, before all of the remaining residents were removed. Shortly before she left, she remembered running into Jay Podolsky in the hallway.

“I told him it was a sin what he had done to the building,” she said, “and a sin what he was doing to the residents.”