One of the major behind-the-scenes players in the city’s lucrative homeless-housing business is a director at a scandal-tainted prison-services firm under investigation for allegedly bribing state lawmakers to win contracts, The Post has learned.
Shimmie Horn, a director of Correctional Services Corp., is a major investor in homeless hotels, interests that he inherited from his father, the late Morris Horn, who once ran one of the city’s most notorious “welfare hotels” of the 1980s, the Brooklyn Arms.
Although Horn isn’t mentioned on any of the city’s lists of shelter providers, estate records filed in Surrogate’s Court in Queens show that Horn, 30, and his mother, Esther, were left substantial investments in at least a dozen hotels.
The hotels are among some of the longest-serving shelters for the homeless and include the Colonial Arms in Jamaica, Queens, and the Stadium Motor Lodge in The Bronx.
Horn’s lawyer, Ron Torossian, said it’s unfair to single out his client because of his role as a member of the board of directors at CSC.
“Mr. Horn has zero day-to-day involvement with the management of CSC. His involvement is limited to a few board meetings a year, which he attends,” said Torossian. “He’s one of a number of directors.”
CSC is under investigation by the Albany County district attorney and three state agencies that are trying to determine if the private prison firm bribed elected officials to win their help in securing contracts.
Gloria Davis of The Bronx resigned her seat in the Assembly and pleaded guilty in January to accepting bribes from CSC.
Horn’s involvement in the emergency housing business has been little known because there are no contracts with the city and no requirement that the owners publicly disclose their partnerships and related business interests, as other firms hired by the city must do.
During the 1980s, Horn’s father operated several welfare hotels, including the Brooklyn Arms, where seven people died in fires and elevator accidents and where cops broke up a massive drug-dealing ring called “Crack Inc.”
Asked why the Horn family remains in the homeless-hotel business, Torossian said, “Mr. Horn is a stockholder in a privately held company. He has no day-to-day role in the operation of the company.”
Horn’s current investments are with longtime family associates, including David Fuld, who described Horn as no more than an investor in Family Center Associates, the city’s largest for-profit shelter service with 12 hotels in their portfolio.
During a prearranged tour of the East River Family Center on 104th Street in East Harlem, Fuld showcased an immaculate facility that houses 146 families, with an array of social services and recreational facilities on site at a cost of $94.50 a day per room.
Fuld said he would welcome a new policy of the city issuing contracts, as long as it did not give municipal bean-counters an opportunity to determine what his profit margin should be.
“I am the cheapest sandwich in the cafeteria,” Fuld boasted. “And the best.”