Watchdog sting uncovers alleged housing discrimination

Following an undercover investigation, Housing Rights Initiative, a housing watchdog group, recently filed one of the largest housing discrimination complaints in New York history.

The investigation was conducted statewide in Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, White Plains, and Suffolk and Nassau counties, an effort HRI says is key to expanding its impact.

“Much of the attention on the housing crisis is focused on New York City, but housing voucher discrimination isn’t just a city crisis, it’s a statewide crisis,” says Aaron Carr, founder and executive director of Housing Rights Initiative. “We believe it is critically important to root out this deeply harmful practice in every town, every city, and every county across New York.”

The complaints, filed with the state Division of Human Rights, target 103 real estate agents, brokerage firms and landlords in the municipalities with 51 complaints of discrimination against low-income families seeking to use the Housing Choice Vouchers program.

Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8, is a federally funded program that subsidizes the rent of eligible low-income households. In 2019, New York amended its Human Rights Law to make it illegal for landlords, brokers, and agents to discriminate against housing applicants who seek to use housing vouchers to pay their rent.

HRI examined that regulation with undercover investigators posing as prospective tenants with Section 8 vouchers. The organization says the investigators contacted “hundreds of brokers and landlords by phone call and text message” to determine their compliance with the law. (HRI included recordings of those calls and copies of text messages with their datasets as well.)

Rochester had the largest number of complaint filings out of the seven municipalities, with 22 out of the total 51 complaints, or 43 percent.

Buffalo had the next most complaints with 13, or 25 percent; the rest of the municipalities had, at most, five complaints.

Locally, most complaints were concentrated around southeast Rochester, with a number on East and University avenues, as well as in the Pinnacle neighborhood. However, complaints extended as far north as the Charlotte Harborview Heights apartments and as far south as a listing near Strong Hospital.

In one conversation initiated by an undercover investigator for HRI, a leasing agent said applicants for a two-bedroom apartment with a $1,900 monthly rent needed a minimum credit rating of 650 and a minimum annual income of $68,000.

When the caller asked about how their Section 8 housing voucher impacts this, the complaint states, the agent said the company typically does not look at the voucher as part of income. However, they can consider it if the renter’s income is near the minimum income level.

During another call for an apartment in the Neighborhood of the Arts, a leasing agent said Section 8 housing “could be an issue to be honest” when the investigator asked about it. In a follow-up call the next day, HRI alleges, the agent confirmed that the landlord was unwilling to accept the voucher.

HRI says the goal of these filings is to end discriminatory housing practices “that are exacerbating New York’s homelessness and affordable housing crisis.” The organization is being represented by Handley Farah & Anderson, a law firm that takes antitrust, discrimination, fair housing, whistleblower, and consumer protection cases.

HRI spearheaded a previous effort to expose Section 8 discrimination in 2021. It resulted in real estate company Compass reforming its renter policies to be more inclusive and encouraging agents to accept more voucher holders in 2022. HRI also has investigated the cities of Chicago and Tacoma, as well as New Jersey and California.

“Mark my words,” Carr says of this investigation. “This is just the beginning.”

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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