A lifelong New Yorker who served his country with honor and distinction in the Korean War found himself out of a home.
Frank Tammaro called Island Shores Senior Center in New York City home for most of the past five years. Until recently, that is. Without consideration for its residents, the facility's owner came to an agreement with city hall to move migrants in and its residents – including nine veterans – out.
“I felt horrible,” Tammaro lamented to Fox News. “It's no joke getting thrown out of a house.” The elderly veteran later found out that illegal immigrants were taking his place at the senior center. “I do get upset when I see them handing out all this money and all these things, and I'm paying taxes and getting kicked out,” he declared. “I've never got anything from the city. Or the state.”
Tammaro planned to live out his years at the Island Shores Senior Residence when notices went up in September 2022 informing residents the facility was shutting down and they needed to pack up and leave by March. Many of the 53 seniors living there, including Tammaro, ignored the letters for months until it was brought to their attention that they only had weeks to find somewhere else to live.
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The facility's owner, a New York City nonprofit called Homes for the Homeless, said in a statement that 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.”
Staff assured the upset seniors that Island Shores would likely be sold and reopened. However, Tammaro's daughter, Barbara Annunziata, was skeptical of the claim and reached out to the building's management for answers.
“We knew something was going to go in there,” she recounted to Fox. “They kept saying, ‘oh, they're going to sell it. They're going to sell it.' That's what they kept telling me.”
Tammaro called the eviction process “scary” touching on the difficulties of finding a quality long-term care facility at his advanced age.
After a fall at his new home, he told his daughter he didn't want to go back.
“He hated it there and for somebody his age, why should he live the rest of his life someplace he didn't like?,” Annunziata stated.
She decided to bring her father home to live with her, providing round-the-clock care.
“I don't understand it at all. It's not fair to anybody,” Annunziata continued. “These migrants, they're getting everything. They're getting everything, and I can't get nothing for [Tammaro]. It angers me.”
Even her request for long-term care was rejected by her father's insurer.
“I can't even get him an aide. I only could get him an aide for 30 days and then they cancel it,” she protested. “So what, he has to pay for it then?”
After the “horrible experience,” Tammaro has settled in with his daughter, only a few minutes away from his old home, which is now called the Midland Beach Migrant Center.
Over 130,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in New York since 2022, The New York Times reports. Tammaro's senior center was one of 200 buildings chosen to become migrant shelters in New York City.
The influx has left politicians scrambling. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) recently stepped up his criticism of the Biden administration's handling of the border crisis.
A recent report by journalist Olivia Reingold reveals that the city's Hispanic residents are so angry about the situation that they may vote Republican.
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