[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. This month, the New York City Human Rights Commission is running a public awareness campaign called Vouchers Pay, Discrimination Doesn't. It's aimed at landlords, real estate agents, and rent voucher holders to remind them that it's against the law to refuse to rent to a prospective tenant whose rent will be paid through a rental subsidy or voucher. To talk about this campaign and other work and to take your calls if you're in a situation like this on either side of it, we have JoAnn Kamuf-Ward, Deputy Commissioner for Policy and External Affairs of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Deputy Commissioner, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Good morning. Really happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's jump right in and talk about your work with vouchers. Source of income discrimination is the technical term. In a nutshell, who does it, and why?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Sure. I want to start just by setting the table a little bit about the work of our agency, of which source of income is a really critical part. Our agency actually has a dual mandate where the city agency tasked with enforcing the city human rights law and also working with New Yorkers to prevent discrimination before it occurs. As you identified, source of income discrimination is prohibited by the city human rights law, which prohibits discrimination in housing on a range of protected categories. This specific issue, source of income discrimination, occurs when landlords or realtors or housing providers treat someone differently because of the way they pay their rent. That can look like a few different things. It can be a blatant statement in advertisements that says, "No vouchers accepted." It can also look like taking one type of voucher but not others. I think, as we know, there are federal vouchers and there are city vouchers and there's a range of programs that constitute public housing assistance. It can also [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Can I jump in for one second-

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Sure. Of course.

Brian Lehrer: - because we'll get into the different types of vouchers a little bit, but what you just said at the beginning of that answer actually shocked me. I didn't know, and I imagine a lot of the listeners don't know. Did you say that a landlord can actually put in a posting for an available apartment, Vouchers not accepted?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: No. I was saying the opposite, that that's a facial blatant violation of the law. The point I was making is that it starts with how you're communicating about rental units as a housing provider and also covers tenants that already live in your building. In all steps of the rental process, there's a prohibition on discrimination or differential treatment for people who hold vouchers.

Brian Lehrer: Got it. Keep going. Sorry, I interrupted.

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: No, no, [chuckles] that's okay. As I was saying, the one thing that we also see happening a lot is what's known as ghosting, which is individuals who are holding vouchers are moving forward in a housing application process. Then, when they mention the type of voucher that they hold, they may not be heard from again. Those are all things that fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission on Human Rights. We think there are a lot of people who know that source of income discrimination is a problem, but we think there's also a lot of both housing providers and potential renters who don't know the protections in the human rights law. That's part of the reason that we are excited to be here with you, but also that we are launching the campaign that you mentioned, Vouchers Pay, Discrimination Doesn't in this month, which is fair housing month.

Brian Lehrer: We're excited to be able to spotlight this issue because it might help some tenants out there before they get discriminated against. Listeners, have you had this experience of discrimination or are you a landlord or rental agent who's gotten reported for discrimination or who wants to say why you're skeptical of renters with vouchers? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We have some calls coming in already just from people who are knowing we were going to talk about this topic. Let me take one right away with, I think, a personal story. Cheyenne in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Hi, Cheyenne. You have a story for us?

Cheyenne: Yes, I do. I have a Section 8 housing voucher. I've been looking for housing for over a year. My current landlord refuses to accept it. Any single listing that I reach out to and I ask, does this listing accept Section 8 housing voucher, sometimes they'll say no straight out. Sometimes they'll say we accept all listings and then they'll never answer back, we accept all vouchers and they'll never answer back my response to see a viewing or anything. There are vouchers out there, but there are no apartments.

Brian Lehrer: Have any landlords ever said to you, or rental agents or whoever you're dealing with, ever said to you why they don't want to take vouchers for rent?

Cheyenne: Nobody says why. Some people like real estate agents will generally say, "Oh, nobody wants to deal with housing vouchers." Some people say the reason is because these people create problems. They stay long and they don't leave. If they can't pay their rent, nothing gets done. The city doesn't care. The tenant has all the power. Some people will say, "Oh, what if you want a paint job and now the city enforces me to do a paint job." Which is its own problem, you should do a paint job every three years in your apartment. People say, "I don't want to get involved with the government."

Brian Lehrer: You're in the situation right now. You have a Section 8 voucher, you can't find an apartment?

Cheyenne: Exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Can you help Cheyenne, Commissioner?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: First, thanks, Cheyenne, for calling in and for sharing your experience, which I think sounds very difficult and also seems indicative of a couple of the practices that I was mentioning that we know that are out there that are violations of the human rights law. Part of our educational mission and the reason we're doing outreach is because it's illegal to treat someone differently because they hold a voucher. Not only is our agency looking at discrimination in this area, this administration is invested in tackling source of income discrimination. I think also, as surfaced in this answer, it's an ecosystem with both federal, state, and local agencies, and we realize that it's a multifaceted problem. At our agency, we encourage individuals who think their rights have been violated to reach out to us. I'm happy to tell you, Brian, and you, Cheyenne, there's several ways to contact us. You can call us, and our number is 212-416-0197. You can file something on our website. You can also come to our offices in downtown Manhattan and you will meet with someone on our law enforcement bureau intake team who can help evaluate if there's been a violation of the human rights law and what your rights are and how you can proceed.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Cheyenne, if you do that, if you follow through with their office, tell them you spoke to Deputy Commissioner for Policy and External Affairs of the New York City Commission on Human Rights JoAnn Kamuf-Ward here on The Brian Lehrer Show. Maybe it will expedite your service, and good luck. Deputy Commissioner, as I understand it, there are two main types of housing vouchers people might qualify for, federal Section 8 vouchers, which was the case in the caller's case, and . FHEPS is an acronym for Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement. That's another type of voucher. Are there different income rules or other rules for who qualifies for one or the other?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Yes. There are a range of different public assistance programs. I think the two that you mentioned are some of the most well known, but there's different qualifying factors even for the FHEPS, which you mentioned, it can be families that experienced domestic violence and people who are facing eviction. There are also specific housing programs for veterans, and other supplement programs. As I noted, we are not the agency that determines eligibility, but we work closely with sibling agencies. I encourage folks really to contact some of the other agencies who disseminate vouchers. Also, I know it's true for us, but for HRA and HPD and other agencies that they work closely with community groups. I should also mention that we have a Housing Resource Fair this weekend in Queens. If that happens to be the borough where you live, we welcome you to come to that and to learn more. A number of city agencies will be in that space looking at housing because, obviously, we're not the only agency who are working on housing issues.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Here is Shaw in Crown Heights, who says he's a former rental agent. Shaw, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Shaw: Oh, you're welcome. Thank you to both of you. Yes, unfortunately, this problem is very easy to perpetuate and there's really little no consequence to it. If you reside in an area-- So much of Brooklyn has been so rapidly gentrified. The demand is insatiable. Landlords really have their pick of the lock when it comes to tenants, and poor people who are trying to get a foothold on life are just shunted further and further outside of the five boroughs. I don't know what has to be done at the city or state level legislatively, but I'm aware that in London, poor people and wealthy people live side-by-side to each other the way that the city is zoned. New York is not like that. New York is extremely segregated by income and race, and we allow it to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Shaw, thank you. You addressed the ease with which the landlords can discriminate against voucher holders. We heard that from the previous caller too who's going through this now, Deputy Commissioner. We have other callers on the board who say nobody tells them, "We're not going to take your vouchers." They just tell them things like, "The apartment has been rented," but then they see the posting is still up there.

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Yes, I think appreciate Shaw's comments, and as a lifelong New Yorker, I understand that housing is a major issue for many, many people. I think voucher holders face an additional barrier to stable housing, which as we know, is critical for communities to thrive. We have a number of tools that our agency can use both when individuals come to us but also to affirmatively identify source of income discrimination. I want to just talk about those for a minute and also what the penalties are if we find that our law has been violated. One of the things that our agency does, and this is our law enforcement bureau, is called testing. This is a longstanding civil rights tool used to determine if discrimination is occurring. One way that that happens is a tester will go out and say they were a voucher holder and then someone will go out and say, "I am not a voucher holder," and you see if the responses are similar or not. That can be indicative of a violation of the law.

Similarly, with ghosting, the more documentation that people who are looking for housing have, the better evidence to show a potential violation of the law.

While each case is unique and we assess damages and civil penalties looking at a range of factors, if a complaint is filed alleging discrimination against a housing provider at our agency, there's the possibility of damages to address the harms experienced by someone who has been discriminated against. We have the authority also to assess civil penalties based on what we see as the willfulness potentially of a violation, and again, the strength of the evidence. We also have the ability to order people to participate in trainings because as I said, we do think that knowing what the law is is critical. We have also at our agency used affirmative relief in a lot of our settlements, which in this case, can mean working with housing providers to set aside a particular number of units for voucher holders. It can also be that housing providers can agree to broker incentive programs where real estate or management companies can incentivize brokers to place voucher holders. We think our anti-discrimination mandate is very important, but we realize there's also a lot of other factors that go into play, availability of housing being one of them, and affordability is something that's a real struggle for many people.

Brian Lehrer: A few more minutes with the New York City Deputy Commissioner for Policy and External Affairs of the city's Commission on Human Rights, JoAnn Kamuf-Ward, as we talk about the problem of housing voucher or source of income discrimination against people trying to rent apartments with various kinds of government-subsidized housing vouchers. We're going to take a phone call from a landlord and get her perspective in just a minute. Danielle in Brooklyn, hang on. We're going to get to you. I want to follow up on what you were just describing with respect to enforcement because we had our housing reporter on recently, David Brand, and we brought up voucher discrimination enforcement that he had reported on. Here's 20 seconds of what he had to say.

David Brand: I would like to hear more about how the city is going to crack down on that type of discrimination. It's the most common complaint fielded by the city's Commission on Human Rights, and yet in recent years, the unit tasked with enforcing source of income discrimination has really dwindled to the point where there was not a single attorney dedicated to these cases.

Brian Lehrer: Can you confirm that, Deputy Commissioner, that in recent years, there's not been a single attorney dedicated to these cases at your commission?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: I can't confirm that, but I think I can correct the record a little bit. Thanks for sharing that clip from David Brand. I think I would like to go back a little bit. This protection has been in place since 2008, and since that time, our agency and our law enforcement bureau have been focused on addressing source of income discrimination. Now, in 2018, a specific unit was created within that bureau so that we would be able to fast-track allegations of discrimination in this area when appropriate, and also prosecute cases when appropriate. There have never been no attorneys working on source of income because we've always had staff in our law enforcement bureau, and some of those folks are always taking on source of income cases, so that is not accurate.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the implication is that there are no attorneys who this is what they do full-time.

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: That's also not true. Then, the other piece that I want to note just for completeness of the work of our agency, so David Brand is right that source of income is the most reported form of discrimination that we see in housing, but there's also a really big part of our laws addressing employment discrimination. Just wanted to give a more fulsome picture, but it's also true that we've always had attorneys and staff working on source of income.

Brian Lehrer: Danielle in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Danielle.

Danielle: Hi. Good morning, Brian, good morning, Deputy Commissioner. I've been waiting for this topic for a long time because my wife and I were very small landlords. We met, we got married, we both had houses, and so we decided to rent her home in Staten Island. We really wanted to help someone, so we accepted the CityFHEPS voucher. That just turned into a three-year nightmare for us where I know that this benefits many people, but there are people who do take advantage of the system, We were part of that where we lost probably in potential rent, I think we had her squatting for almost two years, we lost probably over $100,000. We had to sell the home, which we did not want to do, and we nearly foreclosed on our other home. We had zero rights. We had no rights. Sorry, I'm by a subway. We could not speak to anyone through CityFHEPS. We could not get anyone to respond to us. This woman was untouchable and she knew it and she knew the system, and so she knew what to do to us to keep this dragging along. At the end of it, when we tried to sell, we probably lost a good $50,000 on that sale because the market plummeted. Not only that, she trashed the house when we were done.

It's been a nightmare, and we really sincerely wanted to help someone. I just wanted to give that point of view because we are a small landlord. We don't have a big building. I'm just wondering if there's some other way that this bridge can be gapped for the small landlords who want to help people. Then, you have big landlords who have multiple properties and multiple units. This is a single home, and it was just awful. I just want to give that point of view because I don't think that gets heard enough as well. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Deputy Commissioner, talk to Danielle.

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Thanks, Danielle. I think that sounds like a really difficult situation and I'm sorry to hear that that happened to you. I think we know that being a landlord entails responsibilities and can be complicated and that there are disrespectful tenants. Sometimes those tenants can be voucher holders. Those tenants can also be full paying renters. Going to the points that an earlier caller made, there's a lot of laws in place around housing and the rights of tenants and the rights of landlords. This is one, one small slice. Our aim and our source of income discrimination work is really looking at ensuring that everyone can have access to getting into housing. There are pathways to address landlord and tenant law outside of our jurisdiction really. I want to also remind just listeners that overall, the evidence shows that housing vouchers are a net positive and are key to stability and safety and security, but I realize it can be difficult to be a landlord.

Brian Lehrer: Is it harder for landlords to enforce collection of rent with voucher payers as opposed to anyone else?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: I can't speak to that. I think there's a range of voucher programs and they all work slightly differently, so it would depend on a host of factors, and likely including the size of the landlord and the program.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing before you go, I saw that about a year ago, the non-profit Housing Rights Initiative, that group settled with 23 landlords out of the 88 that they sued in a class action lawsuit over not accepting Section 8 vouchers. The settlement involves training and setting aside apartments. They filed a similar suit over one of the programs we've been talking about, the city CityFHEPS voucher program. Is that making a difference?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: I think anytime a landlord or a realtor changes their policies, that's making a difference. As many of the callers have identified, this is a critical issue in New York City but in other places as well, so it requires all the tools in our toolbox. Education, enforcement, we need industry leaders to step forward and collaborate and get to the root cause of this discrimination, and we also need to work with community partners locally and nationally.

Brian Lehrer: Does the city have to rely on non-profits to enforce compliance with these laws, as that case might indicate?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: No, definitely not. I think we are here as a city agency with the enforcement authority, and as under our law, we are a right to file agency, so any New Yorker can come to us and they can seek to address their allegations of discrimination here. There's also a parallel work process, people should take advantage of that. We are not relying on others, but we really are keen to be collaborating with as many stakeholders as possible.

Brian Lehrer: Okay, just tell people one more time before you go who should contact the city's Commission on Human Rights for what kinds of alleged human rights violations, vouchers, and other things, what's in your portfolio, and how can they get in touch for your help?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: Sure thing. Anyone who thinks they've experienced discrimination whether it's in housing, employment, or in public spaces, should contact the Commission on Human Rights. If it's on the basis of race, national origin, disability, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, and an employment criminal history, we have a lot of information and a lot of protection. Please, if you think you've experienced discrimination or you want to learn more about your responsibilities and obligations, call us at 212-416-0197, come to our website, which is humanrights.gov, or you can use a website complaint form. nyc.gov/humanrights. I was corrected, nyc.gov/humanrights.

Brian Lehrer: nyc.gov/humanrights or I'll give that phone number that you just gave out again because phone numbers go by really fast on the radio, 212-416-0197. We got that right, right?

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: You got it.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there with JoAnn Kamuf-Ward, Deputy Commissioner for Policy and External Affairs at the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about this with everybody. There's a big demand out there. Our phones really exploded. People have so many stories of this kind of discrimination that they feel they're experiencing right now or have gone through recently. Landlords are calling in too. This is a big issue in the city. We appreciate you coming on and talking publicly about it.

JoAnn Kamuf-Ward: We appreciate you and your work. Take care, and have a great day.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.