Exclusive: Housing Advocates’ Report Details Alleged Discrimination Against New Yorkers With Rental Assistance
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Wednesday, housing advocates will be releasing never-before-seen data alleging rampant discrimination against New Yorkers with housing assistance.
CBS2’s Ali Bauman has an exclusive look at the report and why advocates argue it is exacerbating the city’s homeless crisis.
A woman named Sophia, who asked to remain anonymous, has notebooks filled with New York apartments she says she was rejected from after applying with her rental assistance voucher.
“As soon as they hear voucher, they think you’re on public assistance, you’re a drug addict … and it’s a shame because not everybody is,” she said.
She had hoped a state rental voucher would be her way out of the Queens women’s shelter where she was living with her two daughters, but Sophia could not find a landlord who would take it.
“So many let downs. So many, ‘Oh no, we don’t accept vouchers,'” she said. “They don’t want kids, it would be too noisy. It was always one thing after the other.”
What it was is called source of income discrimination, and it’s illegal.
CBS2 got an exclusive preview of a new report from housing advocates detailing hundreds of cases of New Yorkers experiencing the same discrimination as Sophia.
“The fact that source of income discrimination is still so prevalent and still creating such a barrier for people to access housing is keeping people homeless longer,” said Amy Blumsack, with Neighbors Together.
Sophia reported landlords to the City Commission on Human Rights, which is supposed to be the watchdog for this kind of thing.
“Little by little, less staff, no one was calling me back,” she said.
The report argues that budget cuts to the city commission is allowing too many homeless New Yorkers to fall through the cracks and stay on the streets.
“They need way more funding and way more resources. The capacity that they have is not enough to meet the need of the amoutn of source of income discrimination that is happening,” Blumsack said.
In a statement, a City Hall spokesperson said in part, “The City Commission on Human Rights takes every call and every case seriously” and has “implemented a protocol to intervene in situations where landlords are refusing vouchers, typically within 48 hours.”
Editor’s note: This story first appeared on Feb. 8
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February 09, 2022 at 09:30PM
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