Orthodox Families Claim NHA Acted Arbitrarily In Cutting Short Their Search For Four And Five Bedroom Apartment Units
Nine Orthodox Hasidic families that qualified for and received Section 8 Housing Vouchers from the Nyack Housing Authority (NHA) filed for relief in Rockland County Supreme Court when their eligibility either expired or was threatened with expiration.
The plaintiffs had vouchers that entitled them to participate in subsidized housing in the Village of Nyack, provided they could find four- and five-bedroom apartment units within the rent range set by HUD (Housing & Urban Development).
According to the plaintiffs, the search in Nyack was futile as availability of four- and five-bedroom apartments was either non-existent, or substantially outside the rent the vouchers would cover.
The Nyack Housing Authority’s Administrative Plan (the “Plan”) provides several accommodations for extensions, particularly as related to searches for four- or more bedroom units. Plaintiffs say the extensions were improperly denied.
Plaintiffs allege that despite provisions for extensions of eligibility beyond an initial 60-day period, the NHA arbitrarily and in contravention of its plan, either denied extensions or otherwise failed to offer the assistance required under its plan, including recruiting landlords to participate in the Section 8 housing program, direct contact with landlords, written materials promoting owner participation in the program, and meetings with landlord groups and rental referral agencies.
The only units that the plaintiffs were able to locate in Nyack ranged in price from $4,300 to $4,500 per month on Jefferson Street and Gillis Avenue, respectively. The rents exceeded the amount that the Section 8 voucher would cover. According to plaintiffs, other rents for large units were up to $10,000 per month. Searches on Zillow, Apartments.com and Realtor.com were fruitless.
Plaintiffs are seeking an order requiring the NHA to abide by its own rules, particularly the one that allows extensions of eligibility up to 180 days, and reinstate expired eligibility and prevent any eligibility set to expire from expiring. A loss of eligibility would require the applicants to re-apply and re-join a waiting list for available vouchers. The wait could be several years long.
In a letter from the families’ counsel in advance of the court filing, Steven Yurowitz of YurowitzLaw PLLC, raised several issues. Yurowitz argues that rental units exist, but that the NHA has failed to exercise its authority to raise payments above the HUD level as allowed “when needed to expand housing opportunities outside areas of minority or poverty concentration.”
He argues that the geographic restriction imposed by the NHA — units must be located in zip code 10960 — is contrary to the NHA’s Plan which refers to “Rockland County” as its operating area, not Nyack, arguing that the NHA should allow plaintiffs to search for four- and five-bedroom units that are available elsewhere in Rockland County.
Yurowitz also represents that because the NHA’s geographic area includes all of Rockland County, the issue of portability of eligibility need not be addressed, unless the NHA adheres to its Nyack geographic limitations.
Housing voucher portability is the federally established mechanism that allows a household holding a Housing Choice Voucher to move from the jurisdiction of one public housing authority to another while retaining federal rental assistance, sometimes requiring the original housing authority to reimburse the new authority for the rental costs.
And, though the lawsuit does not mention discrimination based on religion, Yurowitz refers in a letter to the NHA, to the Plan which bars discrimination on the basis of religion or familial status. He wrote, “The practical reality here is that nine families, each of them large, and each of them Orthodox Hasidic, were approved for assistance and then confined to a search area with no housing stock capable of accommodating them – with no adjustment to payment standards, no landlord outreach on their behalf and, when they wrote to ask for help, no response beyond an instruction to keep looking.”
Housing discrimination based on “family size” has been rejected by both New York State and federal courts, reasoning that “family size” is not a protected category of persons under relevant housing discrimination laws. Orthodox Jewish couples often have large families, but courts have held absent evidence of actual discrimination based on religion, discrimination based solely on family size is not cognizable by courts, even though it may harm Orthodox Jewish families disparately.
An order to show cause was signed by the court and a hearing set for Thursday at 10:00am for the NHA to show why the relief sought by the nine families should not be granted. The NHA is represented by Keith Braunfotel of Braunfotel & Frendel, LLC.
