Title: The Court Ruling That Could Make NYC Housing Vouchers Harder to Use

Janae Pierre: From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. Many New York City renters face discrimination from landlords who refuse to rent to them once they learn that they're using a housing voucher to pay a portion of their rent. On today's episode, we look into a recent court ruling that could weaken one of the main legal protections meant to stop that kind of discrimination. Before we get into that, here's a couple of news headlines.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is establishing the city's first-ever office for LGBTQIA+ affairs. Taylor Brown is director of the new office, making her the first openly trans person to head a New York City office.

Taylor Brown: Now more than ever in this moment, it is so critical, I think, to have trans leadership, because New York City is where the LGBTQ civil rights movement started.

Janae Pierre: The office will be tasked with examining how social services can benefit queer people who suffer higher rates of homelessness and job insecurity. The new office will also work to safeguard legal protections for queer people amid federal rollbacks on previously established rights. Rising energy costs continue to plague New York, and Governor Kathy Hochul says the Trump administration is helping. Surging power demands are outpacing existing supplies, driving up costs. The governor wants to boost renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and nuclear to help meet that demand, but Hochul says her plans have been hampered by federal actions.

Kathy Hochul: It's maddening. I've got a plan to transition to renewable energy, and they eliminate the tax benefits for wind and solar, and then they kill a project that's just about to power about a half a million homes in Brooklyn.

Janae Pierre: Hochul says her administration continues to evaluate different ideas for mitigating energy bills. One proposal released in the State assembly would hand out rebate checks up to $500 based on household income. Mayor Mamdani is halting the city's private tax lien sale program. That's a system the city has used for decades to collect unpaid property taxes and water bills by selling that debt to private investors. Last week, the city expressed concerns over predatory deck foreclosures. WNYC and Gothamist reporter David Brand is here to break it all down. Hey, David.

David Brand: Hey, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Can you first explain the tax lien sale for us? I did my best here, but tell us, how does that system work?

David Brand: About 30 years ago, the city decided to get out of the foreclosure and debt collection business. In 1996, they started this new process to sell property owners' unpaid tax liens and also other things like water debt or emergency repairs. If the City housing agency has to come in and bill a landlord for repairs, that becomes a debt. To sell those to a private investor-backed trust. That trust then attempts to collect the unpaid bills while hitting homeowners with additional fees. It can really increase pretty quickly the amount the property owner owes.

Janae Pierre: As I mentioned, this program has been controversial for a while now. Why do critics say it can put homeowners at risk?

David Brand: It's been criticized for a number of reasons. First, it puts people at the mercy of these private debt collectors and can inflate their debt with all these added fees. They try to get into payment plans. If they violate those payment plans or fail to make those payments, it could expose them to foreclosure and losing their property for amounts that are typically much, much lower than the value of that property.

Janae Pierre: You know the saying, yesterday's price is not today's price.

David Brand: Classic saying. The city can sell a lien to this trust if the homeowner owes as little as $5,000 in property taxes, or if condo owners and other property owners owe as little as $1,000 in water debt. It could also be bad for tenants if their landlord is on this list because that shows speculators and investors who is vulnerable. Maybe they can get a discount on a building, and then might try to evict the tenants, and the tenants really have no control there.

It's also been criticized for disproportionately affecting homeowners of color, especially in predominantly Black sections of southeast Queens and central Brooklyn. Mamdani himself called the tax lien system racism in a campaign policy outline during his run for mayor.

Janae Pierre: Now that the mayor is pausing it, what happens next for the city and for homeowners who owe those debts?

David Brand: That's a great question. It looks like they'll get at least a temporary reprieve. He says he's going to suspend the sale for at least six months while they review alternatives and maybe create a new structure here. Mamdani is facing some criticism for suspending the debt collection tool, though, because he's at the same time saying the city has a budget gap. He's threatening to raise property taxes if state lawmakers don't enact higher tax rates on the wealthiest New Yorkers.

Some budget watchdogs and fiscal hawks are saying, "You're complaining about a budget gap, and yet you're suspending this tool for getting some money back for the city." That is a burgeoning issue for him, but we'll see what happens in the next few months. There's a lot of ideas of what another system could look like, how the city could collect the debts itself without empowering these private agencies to go after people and really put them at risk of foreclosure. That's something we'll be reporting on.

Janae Pierre: Yes. Thanks, David. After the break, we stay with WNYC housing reporter David Brand to break down a court ruling that could weaken protections for renters who rely on housing vouchers across New York. Stay close.

[music]

Janae Pierre: Welcome back. New York judges have struck down a key state law meant to protect renters who rely on housing vouchers. Housing voucher programs are designed to help low-income households afford housing by covering part of their rent. Tenants usually pay about 30% of their income while the government covers the rest, but many renters say they still face discrimination from landlords who refuse to rent to them once they learn a voucher will be used.

A recent court ruling could weaken one of the main legal protections meant to stop that kind of discrimination. I'm back with WNYC housing reporter David Brand to help walk us through this decision and what it can mean for renters across New York. Hey, David.

David Brand: Hey, Janae.

Janae Pierre: Let's start with the ruling. What did the judges actually decide here?

David Brand: This was a ruling from the 3rd Appellate Division in upstate New York. That's the middle tier of New York's court system. Here, a panel of five appellate judges struck down state law that prohibits discrimination against tenants based on their source of income, basically, how they pay the rent. In this case, if they pay the rent with Section 8 housing vouchers. The judges said that the state law violates landlords' constitutional rights because the Section 8 program requires building safety inspections and for landlords to potentially share financial records.

The landlord, in this case, who they sided with said that those requirements could lead to an illegal search, which would be contrary to his Fourth Amendment rights.

Janae Pierre: Now, this story really caught me off guard because we often don't hear, "This is against the landlord's rights here." It's always the tenant, the tenant, the tenant. Were you surprised by this at all?

David Brand: I'd been tracking this case for a while. To step back, the Attorney General sued the landlord, and that's the landlord's response in court, saying this could lead to illegal search and seizure. I think a lot of tenant advocates were pretty confident that that initial ruling would be overturned, and were caught off guard. I was somewhat surprised that this resulted in a unanimous decision the way it did.

Janae Pierre: We'll get to that Ithaca landlord a little bit later, but for people who may not be familiar with Section 8, it's an income-based program that subsidizes housing for low-income New Yorkers. Right?

David Brand: Right. Tenants typically pay 30% of their income toward rent. They qualify based on their low income. The government pays the remainder with a voucher called the Section 8 program. That rent goes directly to the landlord. There's about 123,000 households just in New York City who use Section 8 to pay their rent. Tens of thousands of others across New York State, and many already describe how hard it is just to find a place to use the voucher because of source of income discrimination.

Janae Pierre: David, let's get back to this tea, this lawsuit involving the Ithaca landlord. What happened there?

David Brand: This actually goes back about six years to 2020. There were these two tenants in Ithaca who went to this pretty prominent property owners rental company and said they wanted to rent apartments, and they had Section 8 housing vouchers. They were told that the company doesn't accept Section 8, so they filed a complaint. Two years later, state Attorney General Letitia James decided to sue this company, it's owned by a guy named Jason Fain, saying he was violating the state's source of income discrimination laws. This was in the lower court of state, it's called the Supreme Court.

A judge there actually sided with the landlord, ruled against Letitia James. Then she appealed to the Appellate Division, making the same argument. This was a violation of source, of income discrimination law, and that's where we got to where we are here with that panel of judges saying, "No, actually the landlord's correct."

Janae Pierre: It was this appeal that judges voted down. What problem was the original law trying to address in the first place?

David Brand: New York City and New York State enacted these separate protections for people who use Section 8 or other housing vouchers because tenants with housing vouchers can have a really hard time finding a place to rent. That's often because they have a housing voucher. It's called source of income discrimination, as we've talked about. Landlords, managers, brokers, real estate agents might steer people away from certain apartments or just deny them, saying, "We don't accept programs," or what's very common is they just ghost them. Once they find out somebody has a housing voucher, they just stop responding to them.

It's a big problem. It could be because of stereotypes associated with people who have housing vouchers. By definition, they're lower income, so there's a lot of discrimination against people who are poor. It could be that landlords just don't want to deal with all the paperwork and other requirements that come with government programs, even if it does mean a consistent source of rental income that's backed by the government.

Janae Pierre: That's exactly what I'm thinking, because what is this stigma actually? At the end of the day, you're getting the money.

David Brand: Right. Especially at a time when a lot of landlords are complaining that they're not getting consistent rent payments. We saw rental arrears and nonpayment spike during the pandemic, and we're still seeing that today, leading to a lot of nonpayment eviction cases. This is actually a consistent source of rental income. There's baggage associated with it, I guess. We mentioned two reasons why landlords, property managers might not accept it.

Another, and this is what is also behind the source of income discrimination protections, is because the source of income discrimination can be used as a proxy against other forms of illegal discrimination, like discrimination based on race or ethnicity, someone's gender, or even their family composition, because property owners often don't want to rent to families with kids, for example.

Janae Pierre: Oh, wow. Landlords can't refuse to rent to someone because they're elderly or disabled, but they can refuse to rent to someone using a housing voucher. How are these tenant advocates reacting to the ruling?

David Brand: People are pretty upset about this. To your question before, I think it caught a lot of people off guard who had trusted that these protections met constitutional requirements and were intended to protect tenants because they were using this form of payment for their rent.

Janae Pierre: From the government.

David Brand: Exactly. Lawyers representing tenants say this decision could make it much harder for voucher holders to find housing. They argue the court's reasoning here is flawed. They say the protections were created specifically because renters with vouchers have long been excluded from housing. They also say it was based on speculation. This particular landlord wasn't actually forced to submit to an illegal search, and that it's just the potential for that, and that formed the basis of the judge's ruling.

Janae Pierre: Earlier, you mentioned that there are about 130,000 households across New York City who use these housing vouchers that we mentioned. Could the impact go beyond just Section 8 tenants?

David Brand: Potentially, yes. Advocates say landlords could use this ruling to challenge other laws that protect people who rely on different types of rental assistance. This rule ruling was specifically for the Section 8 program, but here in New York City, there's CityFHEPS, that's a new York City voucher program that's used by more than 60,000 households. Most of those are people who are moving out of homeless shelters into permanent housing. It's the biggest municipal rental assistance program in the country by far.

There are other voucher programs. There's one specifically for people with HIV and AIDS to find secure permanent housing, and then the state itself recently opened up its own new voucher program that was included in the last year's budget. It's called the Housing Access Voucher Program. They actually just rolled that out last month.

Janae Pierre: David, I can't help but think about people who are currently looking for an apartment with their housing voucher right now. What about them?

David Brand: That's the big question, and definitely want to hear from people who are having that experience. That's going to be part of my reporting. Is this changing anything? People have already said it can be very hard to find an apartment for a couple of reasons. Apartments are very limited. Second reason, there is discrimination. Even if it is prohibited, it still occurs. Then I've talked with advocates and attorneys who say this could just embolden property managers, brokers, landlords to say, "Look, I see this ruling. We don't have to accept these vouchers. That's legal now to deny you." We'll see if that happens.

Janae Pierre: Now, call me naive, at what point do you let the landlord know that you will indeed be paying with a housing voucher?

David Brand: I guess it varies. You could say right off the bat, "I'm looking for an apartment, and I'm using this voucher to help pay the rent." You don't have to do that. That could be negotiations with the broker or the manager before signing the lease. I guess it varies, but before you sign the lease, and then the the landlord does have to submit to certain paperwork requirements and potentially inspection requirements as well.

Janae Pierre: What happens next here, David? Could the ruling at this point still be overturned?

David Brand: I mentioned that ruling was from the middle tier of New York's court system, so the lowest tier. We call it the Supreme Court. That ruling was from the Appellate Division. Then there's finally the Court of Appeals. The Attorney General says that she's reviewing the decision and may appeal to the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. If that happens, the case could determine whether these kinds of anti-discrimination protections remain in place statewide.

Janae Pierre: I'm certainly going to be following your reporting to keep up with that. That's WNYC's David Brand. Thanks a lot, David.

David Brand: Thanks, Jenae.

[music]

Janae Pierre: Before we go, got to spread some good luck to NYU's women's basketball team. The Violets might be the most dominant team in New York right now. The team won big Saturday night over the University of Wisconsin to advance to the Final Four of the NCAA Division III tournament. That keeps NYU's undefeated season alive. The NYU women have now won 91 games in a row. Only the UConn women have ever had a longer winning streak at any level of NCAA basketball, men or women.

NYU will play again on Thursday, facing the University of Scranton for a spot in the championship game. You got this, ladies. Let's do it. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. See you next time.

Copyright © 2026 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.