This NY Section 8 decision takes discrimination to a new levelWilson Kimball |
On March 5, the New York State Supreme Court’s Third Department Appellate Division rendered a decision against Section 8 voucher holders that took discrimination to a whole new level. The case involved landlords in Ithaca who did not want to accept Section 8 voucher holders under a New York State law that prohibits landlords from discriminating against tenants based on their sources of income. The court’s decision is dead wrong. And now Section 8 tenants have significantly less rights than you and I.
Let’s get some basic facts out of the way. The Section 8 program is funded by taxpayer dollars. At the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority, our qualified tenants are expected to pay up to 30% of their income toward rent. We pay the rest with taxpayer dollars. In exchange for getting a guaranteed rent our landlords are expected to allow for an inspection of the unit and provide rent data to prove that the rent is reasonable. Shouldn’t we make sure the unit is livable and the rent is reasonable?
The court said requiring landlords to submit to an inspection of a unit and rent rolls (what landlords call their rent collection data) is an illegal governmental search under the fourth amendment. Really? Does that mean that the nearly 500,000 complaints a year New York City’s Department of Housing and Building responds to by sending inspectors out to survey apartments is a violation of the fourth amendment? From 2017 to 2021, New York City received over 814,542 heat complaints, which means a building inspector comes to your apartment and does a temperature reading to make sure that your landlord is complying with the law. No warrant is required. If you have a pest infestation, a front door that can’t be locked or any other issue that may jeopardize your life and safety, an agent of the government is entitled to inspect the situation. The fire department will come if a tenant smells gas. All these people are agents of the government who have free unfettered access to apartments without warrants and without consent of the landlords. Yet Section 8 inspectors who make sure the smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector are working, the locks on the doors work, there is a secondary means of egress, and the bedrooms have windows in case of a fire are a problem? These may be life-threatening conditions, and the role of government is to protect its citizens.
In Yonkers, our Section 8 inspector is a retired building inspector. He knows what to look for to protect our tenants from unsafe conditions and to protect taxpayers from paying for fraud, waste and abuse. Inspecting the unit before a tenant moves in makes more sense than inspecting it after a tenant moves in and finds out they are living in an unsafe condition. Additionally, when building inspectors, police or firemen come in for heating, water, noise or gas issues they often go into the basement, go to the roof, and check other apartments. Never once in my decades of work with landlords and tenants has anyone asked for a warrant to do what amounts to a safety inspection of private property.
The court also expresses concern that the landlord may have to turn over records like their rent rolls. Landlords are already supposed to post some of their records like elevator inspections. If you want to figure out a rental roll you can go to Zillow.com or other rental sites. There are real property documents on city and county sites like Yonkers’ Real Property Viewer where the public can even figure out if you have paid your taxes. Information is everywhere online but agencies like Housing Authorities that are spending taxpayer dollars aren’t allowed to safeguard that money by making sure the apartments are safe and the rent is reasonable. The court has taken discrimination against section 8 voucher holders to a whole new level when they don’t even have the same safeguards as any other renter has to a safe home. In this case the court has misspent my money and yours.
Wilson Kimball is president and CEO of the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority and executive director of New York State Public Housing Authority Directors Association.