The lawsuit focuses on housing alternative vouchers, a federal program that gives low-income households with subsidies to help them to find properties. This system, a successor to Part 8 vouchers, helps its customers afford market-rate housing, offered the lease does not exceed limits set by this system directors and a share of the particular person’s revenue, and it at present helps greater than 9,000 residents of Nassau County, in keeping with the criticism.
HRI had heard from a number of attorneys and neighborhood companions over the previous few years that many households and people had been having a tough time discovering properties that will settle for their vouchers. The group thus launched an investigation of rental housing in Nassau County utilizing civil rights testers to see if landlords and brokers had been complying with truthful housing legal guidelines.
HRI checked out a number of residences starting from studios to three-bedrooms in a number of cities all through Nassau County the place rents didn’t exceed the utmost allowed by the voucher program, in keeping with the lawsuit. Nevertheless, the defendants informed HRI’s testers that they’d not settle for vouchers as a supply of fee, the swimsuit says.
As an example, a tester referred to as Berkshire Hathaway in August 2020 to ask about renting a two-bedroom condominium in Glen Cove for $2,000 per thirty days. “When the tester inquired about utilizing her voucher, the consultant mentioned that he ‘do[es]n’t assume he is gonna settle for Part 8 on this one,'” in keeping with the lawsuit.
Equally, a tester contacted Coldwell Banker a couple of three-bedroom house in Lynbrook in October 2020 renting for $2,850 per thirty days, and the consultant mentioned she would wish to ask the owner about utilizing a Part 8 voucher to pay the lease. “When the tester referred to as again, the consultant mentioned ‘OK. So, he does not do the Part 8,'” in keeping with the lawsuit.
The swimsuit describes related occurrences at properties in Valley Stream, Westbury, Nice Neck, Island Park, Hewlett, Farmingdale, Hempstead, New Hyde Park, Mineola and Woodbury, and names 12 actual property companies as defendants total. It calls their refusals to take vouchers “pervasive and egregious, starting from flat-out refusals to insinuations in regards to the worthiness of voucher holders as tenants.”
“This lawsuit in opposition to a dozen actual property corporations does not simply expose housing discrimination in Lengthy Island however a scarcity of housing enforcement in New York state,” mentioned HRI Govt Director Aaron Carr.
Matthew Handley, one of many attorneys representing HRI, was notably annoyed at Berkshire Hathaway’s alleged refusal to simply accept vouchers given the corporate’s sophistication and dimension within the New York actual property world.
“We notably want the larger gamers within the area to get this proper to set the proper precedent for the remainder of the sphere,” he mentioned.
Representatives for Berkshire Hathaway and Coldwell Banker didn’t reply to requests for remark by press time.
The lawsuit asks the courtroom to enact an injunction that will cease the defendants from refusing to lease housing to individuals utilizing vouchers. It asks for financial damages, punitive damages and attorneys’ charges for HRI as effectively, noting that the group was compelled to spend its restricted assets on the Nassau County investigation fairly than on its counseling and referral companies.
“HRI spent quite a lot of time and assets attempting to cope with this in a non-litigation method,” mentioned Handley, “and it is solely because of not with the ability to discover a decision to that that we have now obtained to file a lawsuit.”
Housing, and notably housing within the suburbs, has emerged as a significant level of competition within the state’s ongoing price range negotiations. Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing for a housing plan that will require downstate counties to extend their housing provide by 3% each three years, framing it as a vital part of tackling New York’s reasonably priced housing disaster. Nevertheless, the Legislature has pushed again strongly on this plan, slicing a lot of it from their price range proposals.
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