MONTICELLO – During public comment of the Legislature’s March 12 meeting, resident Marty Colavito announced that the Monticello apartment building “Moon Manor” was being foreclosed. Colavito, who received several calls from worried tenants, expressed concern that the foreclosure would result in numerous evictions that would exacerbate Sullivan County’s costly struggle to provide emergency housing for those in need. 

“I do have a call in to the Legal Services of Hudson Valley; they said they were going to have a meeting to see if they can even step in to this,” Colavito said. 

Colavito, a community organizer who is part of SALT (Sullivan Allies Leading Together) and started organizing in the late 1970s in the Bronx, said that when foreclosures of tenement buildings happened in the past, he was able to contact the landlord to try to find a solution that avoided evictions.

“We’re a culture that responds to crises rather than prevents one,” said Colavito. “Every time we react to a crisis it costs us so much more money.”

District 8 Legislator Amanda Ward said, “We were notified of [the foreclosure] and I connected with the County Manager’s Office to see if we could work with Consumer Affairs and Human Rights to put on an educational session [for the residents].” 

Ward said that there were many vacant units in the building and that a tenant reported that she was unable to contact anyone at the landlord’s office to renew their lease. 

According to the official Summons filed by the Sullivan County Clerk on February 17, the Plaintiff in the case is Federal National Mortgage Association/Fannie Mae, who is the current owner and holder of the Note and Mortgage. The Summons states, “This is a commercial mortgage foreclosure action on a 69-unit multifamily property commonly known as ‘475 West Broadway’ A/K/A 69 Moon Manor Road, Monticello, New York.”

The document, accessible to the public, says that the plaintiff’s mortgage secured a loan for $4,630,000, which has been in default since November 17, 2024. It continues that the plaintiff seeks foreclosure of the property as well as a money judgement against the following defendants: CIG MM LLC, MSUR MM LLC, YAHALOM MM LLC, and Yair Schneid, all of whom have addresses in New Jersey.

District 5 Legislator Cat Scott asked her colleagues, “Is there the will of this body to send a letter to that bank and politely ask them what their plans are? Because what we’re going to hear later from the Commissioner of Health and Human Services [John Liddle] is how much more we’re paying for emergency housing than we did last year.”

Liddle confirmed in a subsequent interview with the Democrat that emergency housing costs are rising: Sullivan County, which provides an approximate 75% share of funding, paid hotels $5.9 million in 2025 to supply emergency shelter; in 2024, the cost was $3.5 million.

Scott warned that evicted individuals from a foreclosure would take up available housing inventory, further thwarting the efforts of the Department of Social Services. “Every time you throw a stone into a pond there are many ripples, and so it is in our best interest to have a full understanding of this, and I think reaching out to the bank is an appropriate move.”

District 7 Legislator Joseph Perrello weighed in on the discussion, saying, “There’s a person that’s looking to build over 500 units in Monticello…and he’s getting blocked in every direction. We all know there’s a crisis in housing up here, and still people stop developers from building apartments, I don’t understand it.” 

Perrello added that the developer wanted to construct several buildings near the dilapidated remnants of the Apollo Mall, and that he thinks the Legislature should be promoting such building projects. “I hope the Village considers this; I know they need a zone change, but sometimes you have to do things that are unorthodox to make things happen.”

District 1 Legislator Matthew McPhillips said, “I agree with Cat [Scott], we should at least take a step and try to solve this.” 

McPhillips echoed Colavito’s assertion that the Moon Manor foreclosure is a real crisis and cited the fact that hundreds of people in the county need costly emergency housing. “I think it underlines the need for housing in this community of all kinds across the spectrum, whether that’s workforce, whether that’s the transitional [housing] that we had talked about last year and continue to talk about moving forward,” he said.