By: Ilana Siyance
A housing watchdog group has filed a wide-ranging lawsuit in Manhattan’s federal court. As reported by the NY Times, the complaint alleges that 88 brokerage firms and landlords in New York City have practiced discrimination against people using housing vouchers.
The suit, filed by the Housing Rights Initiative on Monday, presents dozens of recorded conversations in which investigators who posed as prospective tenants face hurdles when trying to use Section 8 housing vouchers. Section 8, passed in 1978, is a $22 billion annual program to basically guarantee a rent check from the federal government, in order to support housing for many American families. Over 125,000 households in the NYC use Section 8 vouchers, making it the biggest bulk of vouchers from any other city in America. Many of the users are from minority groups, including Black and Latino. “Our goal here is simple: It’s to get real estate companies to abandon their discriminatory housing practices and follow the damn law,” said Aaron Carr, founder of the Housing Rights Initiative. “They are the gatekeepers of housing and get to decide where families live, where they work and where children go to school. Housing discrimination goes beyond the walls of housing.”
For landlords and brokers, accepting the Section 8 vouchers sometimes comprises of having an inspector check the health and safety of units before renting, as well as other bureaucratic hurdles. Despite those extra strides, however, by law a broker or landlord cannot choose to deny a tenant for using a Section 8. The housing groups and government agencies have been using undercover operations to investigate potential discrimination for years. As per the Times, in one recorded call, a lady posing as a potential tenant had asked if the landlord would accept her section 8 voucher. “If she accept what? Oh, no, she would not,” Harris Philip, an independent broker, had allegedly replied. “She just doesn’t. She wants well-qualified people.”
The suit names 88 defendants comprised of small and large landlords and brokers. Some well-known firms included in the suit are Compass, the Corcoran Group and a Century 21 franchise office in Manhattan. Mr. Philip, an Upper East Side broker, told the Times that he didn’t recall the conversation recorded last year. “I would never say anything straightforward like this because I do consider Section 8 qualified,” Mr. Philip said. “Maybe she rubbed me the wrong way.” A spokeswoman for the Corcoran Group had commented on the suit saying that it takes discrimination seriously and is offering “education and training” for employees and sales agents.