Dozens Of Landlords, Brokers Accused Of Housing Bias: Lawsuit

Updated Monday at 11:51 a.m.

NEW YORK CITY — In call after call with New York City landlords and brokers, a housing watchdog group's undercover investigators received variations of the same response: “We don’t take vouchers.”

That response, and dozens more like it, are detailed in a massive federal lawsuit filed Monday by the Housing Rights Initiative.

It's a response that Nancy Padilla, a tenant and HRI client, knew all too well. She spent 15 years "trapped" in the city's shelter system as landlords and brokers refused to accept her voucher.

"Every time a landlord saw my voucher…their whole facial expression changed," she said during a Monday news conference. "Immediately, they would turn me away."

The lawsuit accused nearly 90 landlords and brokers of refusing to accept Padilla and other New Yorkers with housing vouchers. They're a group largely consisting of Black and Brown people, those facing homelessness or with disabilities.

"Defendants in this action are landlords and brokers who blatantly refuse to rent apartments to New Yorkers with vouchers," the lawsuit states. "They do so in violation of local, state, and federal law, even as New York City faces a housing crisis and the ravages of a global pandemic."

Aaron Carr, HRI founder and director, said that half the real estate investors contacted in the undercover probe refused to rent to people with housing vouchers.

Discrimination is alive and well in New York City, he said.

"Our goal here is simple — it is to get real estate companies to abandon their discriminatory housing practices and to follow the damn law," he said.

Housing Rights Initiative investigators began in 2017 after receiving complaints that many people and families couldn't locate rental properties that would accept their vouchers, according to the lawsuit.

Investigators — "testers" in the lawsuit's wording — conducted calls and inquiries about listed apartments, the complaint states. They discovered "rampant" income discrimination and routine refusal to accept vouchers, according to the lawsuit.

Those testers' interactions with landlords and brokers are detailed in the lawsuit. A broker, when asked about an Upper West Side apartment, for example, told the test the landlord was "picky as hell," according to the lawsuit.

"When the tester asked about using her Section 8 voucher, the representative replied there was 'not a hope in hell,'" the lawsuit states. "She later stated 'they don’t do vouchers.'"

Refusing to accept vouchers perpetuates discrimination against Black and Brown New Yorkers, continues segregation in the city and creates barriers to housing, the lawsuit states.

Padilla finally left the shelter system for her own apartment more than a year ago. She hopes the lawsuit helps others who faced housing discrimination.

"No one should feel as if someone has you as a puppet and they’re holding the string," she said.

The lawsuit was filed by Handley Farah & Anderson law firm with HRI and the Legal Aid Society.

Patch writer Anna Quinn contributed to this report.