State's lack of bias testing hampers Section 8 voucher holders

By: Kayla Canne
Asbury Park Press
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Tonya Wood spent 12 years on a waiting list before she received her Section 8 housing voucher, a form of federally funded rental assistance for low-income tenants. It took a landlord only a few seconds to deny Wood the opportunity the voucher is supposed to afford her and thousands of New Jersey tenants like her - the freedom to choose where they live.
..... In August, [2021] a Woodbridge landlord rejected Wood's rental application once the 39-year-old criminal justice graduate student from Edison mentioned she'd be paying with Section 8. A state law bars landlords from discriminating against tenants because they receive rental assistance.
..... A phone recording caught the discrimination on tape.
..... "Yeah, we don't take that," the landlord said.
..... New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination prohibits such bias based on the source of someone's income, including government rental assistance like Section 8 housing vouchers.
..... The Section 8 program was designed to give low-income tenants freedom in choosing where they live, equalizing access to better schools, neighborhoods and resources. But New Jersey landlords often reject such vouchers with impunity, an Asbury Park Press investigation found.
..... Yet state officials in the Division on Civil rights have made it easy for landlords and real estate agents to break the law, relying on a passive and drawn-out complaint process as their chief enforcement tool - instead of proactive chasing down violators of the law through proven investigative methods.
..... Several studies that assess the defectiveness of laws that bar discrimination toward voucher holders say that undercover testing - and publicizing the results of those tests - are important measures in enforcement.
..... Undercover operations have been used for decades, most notably to expose racial discrimination in job and housing markets. Investigators assume the roles of identical prospective tenants or job-seekers with one difference - race or gender, for example - to uncover biases in treatment based on that characteristic.
..... The impetus for this work is simple: Testing uncovers discrimination before it happens to real people or offers evidence when it has occurred.
..... The Poverty and race Research Action Council, a Washington, D.C.-based group that researches and advocates for group rights policies, said in a March 2020 briefing that audit testing serves as a "powerful deterrent" for future violators of these laws.
..... But in that way, New Jersey is falling behind. State officials told the Press they pursue income discrimination "pro actively," but when asked for examples, they could point to but one testing imitative - a review of real estate advertisements - and that project ended last year. [2020]
..... Meanwhile, housing advocates in New York City have had recent success in an aggressive testing campaign that uncovered discriminatory tactics by nearly half of the landlords they contacted.
..... Local housing advocates say New Jersey lacks the political will to do the same. And a low number of complaints indicates the ineffectiveness of the state's current strategy. The state processed just 28 formal complaints from victims of income discrimination in 2021, yet Wood's Facebook post on a Section 8 page received 16 responses from other claiming discrimination too - in a single day.
..... "I think the largest reason is simply that people don't know what their rights are," Matt Shapiro, president of the New Jersey Tenants Organization, said. "Lack of knowledge, and in may cases lack of will. 'I don't want to get involved in this. I don't want to live in a place where the landlord doesn't want me.' Not everybody is willing to fight discrimination. Just because you have a right on the books doesn't mean that those rights actually do get enforced or that people actually know they have those rights."
..... Shapiro's group helped fold protections for voucher holders into the state's Law Against Discrimination nearly 20 years ago, in 2002. The law also bars discrimination on several fronts, including race, religion, sexual orientation and disability.
..... Prior to that, the state had a similar statue, but Shapiro said it lacked severe penalties and did not assign a supervising agency, making it difficult to enforce.
..... Federal fair housing laws do not protect against source of income discrimination; the federal Fair Housing Act only prohibits housing discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religions, sex, familial status or disability. New Jersey is one of 20 states to go beyond federal standards to provide protection against income discrimination, according to the poverty council.
..... While it wouldn't change protections in New Jersey, interest at the federal level to amend the Fair Housing Act to include income discrimination is low. Several federal lawmakers have introduced bills on the subject, but those bills have languished in committees with little public debate.
..... Meanwhile, Section 8 is the nation's largest rental housing assistance program, disbursing $25.7 billion in federal aid to help more than 2.2 million families pay rent last year. [2020] But demand for vouchers is greater than the supply.
..... Every public housing authority in New Jersey has a waiting list several years long. To qualify for a voucher, a family's total household income must be less than 50% of the area median income, Fro a family of four in Monmouth County, that is $54,450.
..... In Monmouth county, with 5,379 vouchers, tenants on average wait three years before they receive assistance, according to the 2020 HUD data. Other areas of the state see similar wait times:
* Ocean County: 4,572 vouchers with an average wait of 3 1/2 years.
* Middlesex County: 6,836 vouchers with an average wait of 5 1/2 years.
* Camden County 4,313 vouchers with an average wait of just over four years.
* Bergen County: 8,361 vouchers with an average wait of three years.
..... But it is common for tenants to wait longer. After 12 years of waiting, Section 8 helps Wood pay for her Edison apartment, but now the voucher feels more like a barrier.
..... "Because of having a Section 8 voucher, I'm not able to move, and I'm not able to progress," Wood said. "And it causes a lot of anxiety. Maybe this issue would no longer exist if this can be placed to the forefront and maybe someone in the attorney general's office maybe looks into it. I know a lot of people who do go through discrimination and they don't make complaints because they don't feel like they go anywhere. And it's just you know, back to square one."
..... State officials declined a Press interview for this story, saying Division on Civil Rights Director Rachel Wainer Apter is unavailable as she is under consideration for a seat on the state Supreme Court.
..... Leland Moore, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office, declined to make another official available for an interview, providing only written responses to Press questions.
..... Moore wrote that the agency's enforcement strategy around income discrimination is generally effective."
..... He did not directly respond to a question asking what could be done to improve enforcement, saying the division makes "concerted efforts to ensure that landlords know their obligations," and works to "address violations after the fact."
..... But when asked for examples of proactive enforcement beyond the complaint process, Moore pointed largely to public information campaigns and had only one investigation to share: A director-led testing initiative that concluded in September 2020.
..... The initiative, Project HOME, was the first of a new team designed under the administration of Governor Phil Murphy in 2018 to "proactive investigate civil rights violations outside of the context of individual complaints," Moore said.
..... Housing investigators reviewed real estate advertisements for language that discriminated against tenants based on their source of income, like postings that said, "not approved for Section 8" or "no SRAP (state rental assistance program)." The initiative led to 100 settlements agreements with housing providers responsible for the discriminatory listings.
.... The violators were fined up to $15,000 each and agreed to adopt measures to ensure future compliance. The state, however, did not name the majority of violators i a news release announcing the investigation - limiting the full deterrent effect of the initiative.
..... Three large rental property companies, allegedly responsible for a combined 59 discriminatory advertisements, were named and were required to submit progress reports that detailed policy to submit progress reports that detailed policy changes and training efforts to the state. The division also partnered with large listing like Zillow, Apartments.com and BrightMLS to post warnings on their website and update software to remove discriminatory content, like boxes a landlord could check to indicate whether they accepted Section 8 vouchers.
..... The law affords then no such choice.
..... Other efforts by the division include ongoing fair housing trainings and public information campaigns with real estate agents, landlords and tenants.
..... Moore said officials believe discrimination is underreported in New Jersey and around the country.
..... But the dismissed criticism from fair housing advocates that the state's approach is passive and too dependent upon tenants to come forward.
..... "Merely waiting for tenants to file complaints would be passive enforcement but as discussed in the response above, that is not how DCR approaches sources of income discrimination," he wrote.
..... When asked whether the conduct targeted in the 2020 probe is ongoing, Moore said the agency "cannot confirm or deny the existence of open investigations." But a division official speaking on the condition that their name not be used, said the initiative has "wrapped" and that the state will follow up as it "continues to receive additional LAD (Law Against Discrimination) complaints that may be driven by the fact that we're calling public attention to this issue, and people are more aware of their rights."
..... In other words, the state has returned to relying on the complaint process - the initiative of vulnerable and often unaware applicants - to drive enforcement.

Slow solutions in a hurried housing search

.... Victims alleging discrimination can file a complaint on the division's website, through a portal launched last ear [2020] known as the New Jersey Bias Investigation Access System.
..... But the complaint process is slow-leading to investigations that stretch several years in some cases - and offers no immediate relief to tenants whose housing search is oftentimes urgent.
.... One case remained unresolved for 10 years, according to a January 2020 news release from the civil rights division. The 2020 complaint lingered within the division until 2016, when a finding of no probable causes was issued.
..... The tenant appealed to
Superior Court, which remanded the case back to the state for reconsideration. In 2019, the division reversed itself and issued a finding of probable cause. It took another year for both parties to negotiat4e a settlement, which required the property manger of a Bergenfield apartment complex to pay the tenant $30,000 in damages and implement non-discrimination trainings and polices.
..... Moore said discrimination cases can take anywhere between several weeks and several years to investigate, depending on the complexity of the case.
..... He said investigators often provide relief from discrimination early in the process, following the intake interview, by reaching out directly to landlords to resolve the issue. These instances are not recorded as formal complaints.
..... Since June, [2021] Moore said the division has "favorably resolved" 29 instances of income discrimination this way, mostly about COVID-19 emergency rental assistance.
..... But if an immediate solution to Wood's discrimination case was available, she was not able to access it.

Filing a complaint

..... A little over a week after her phone call with the Woodbridge landlord, Wood decided to file a complaint with the state.
..... She had recorded the call with the landlord - Wood said she records all business calls to track information in a way that's easier than taking notes.
..... Now, she realized, the recording could become a key piece of evidence in a discrimination case. Getting the ball rolling, however, hasn't been easy.
..... When searching "how to report housing discrimination" on Google, the first link leads to a complaint portal on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's website. HUD is the federal agency that funds Section 8 vouchers, so Wood believed she was in the right space for help.
..... Because income discrimination is only covered under state law and not a federal mandate, she needed to lodge a complaint with New Jersey instead.
..... The discrimination took place August 3. [2021] Wood filed a complaint with HUD on August 12. [2021] And then, after multiple attempts at navigating the state's website, she field two complaints with the state Division on Civil Rights on August 25: [2021] One against the Woodbridge landlord and another against the property owner of a Zillow advertisement who wrote "we don't accept Section 8: in the listing.
..... She no longer wanted either apartment - she wasn't comfortable renting from someone who stigmatized voucher holders - and both listings had already been taken down. But Wood said she wanted to show the landlords that discrimination comes with consequences.
.... A confirmation message from the civil rights division indicated she would receives a response in five business days.
..... Instead, it took five weeks to hear from the state - and it wasn't much.
..... On October 1, [2021] Wood said a division staffer called to ask her when she filed her complaint. The official couldn't locate her record, Wood said.
..... When Wood provided the date of both complaints, the staffer was able to pull up just one - and told her it hadn't been assigned to an investigator. The staffer gave Wood a reference number and told her someone from the state would reach out when the case was assigned.
..... Wood asked for a turnaround time; the staffer could not provide one.
..... Before she heard from the state, Wood told the Press she was frustrated by the slow response. "I was expecting for them to step in. To issue fines, at the very least investigate it."
..... After she heard from them, she was equally as perplexed.
..... "What's the purpose of filing a complaint if nobody is going to follow up?" wood said. After another two weeks pass, Wood decided to follow up herself. She left a voice-mail with the division on October 19 [2021] inquiring about the status of her complaint. On October 21, [2021] now nearly two months since she first contacted the division, Wood received a call saying her complaint was formally filed.
....."(This) shouldn't have taken 60-plus days," she said.
..... And there is no resolution still: A state investigation will follow, but Wood said she was not given any information on how long that might take. When Wood first posted to the Facebook group asking others about their experience, several voucher holders told her that complaints to the state wouldn't go anywhere. She didn't believe them at first.
..... "Now I can understand how so many women in that group feel as strongly as they do," she said. "I've been offered this opportunity with a voucher, but in reality, it's meaningless if I can't use it anywhere."

Denials

..... When a Press reporter contacted the Woodbridge landlord about denying Wood's voucher, the landlord skirted the issue by offering alternative explanations. At first, the landlord said Wood was told the apartment was no longer available. But in the six-minute recording with Wood, the landlord described the apartment in full and never said it had been rented.
..... When told the Press had a copy of the recorded call, the landlord offered multiple other reasons for turning away Wood. "well, it's a private property. How could you accept that?" she said. "And first of all, no. I mean - there was no listing that said we accept Section 8 and this is private property, by the way."
..... Asked if she was familiar with the law, the women rebuffed any idea of discrimination. "It's not discrimination, by the way," she said. "And, like I said, it's a private property. And, you know, according to the rule, we'd never, we don't qualify for Section 8. So, when you know, why would we rent it - and it was already rented, by the way."
..... When the reporter offered to send a copy of the recording, the landlord hung up.
..... Sofia Karimi, fair housing testing coordinator for the nonprofit New Jersey Citizen Action, said these confrontations show what voucher holders go through when facing discriminatory landlords. Regular testing she said, helps catch violators, build evidence and penalize them down the line.
..... "When they do come up with something like this, the landlord holds that power over them," Karimi said. "It puts them in a position hat they don't know what to do or where to reach for help."
..... And even when they do, the length of the complaint process shows how ineffective this enforcement approach is.
..... "In the meantime, what are you supposed to do?" Karimi said. "this is just a lot of heavy responsibility that i think the government should be doing, that we're placing on everyday people."

Left waiting with no solution

..... Meanwhile, the constant denials are taxing for tenants left with dwindling resources.
..... Several voucher holders responded to Wood's Facebook post sharing their own experiences with discrimination. One is on the brink of homelessness after a two-month housing search. Another can;t escape repeated conflicts with her neighbor because she can't find a new apartment that will accept her Section 8 voucher.
..... It was Wood, they said - not the government - that spurred them to call out this injustice and speak with the Press.
..... And yet others replied with resignation. "You can make as much noise as you want here and nothing about it going to change," one woman wrote in a series of comments to Wood. "Reporting them isn't going to get far either. And hey if the law makers aren't going to enforce the laws they make, who are we too?"
..... On some level, she was right.
..... Nearly three months after she was denied housing because of her voucher, Wood is still in her Edison apartment, having given up her housing search - for now. the pressure of finding a new apartment became too much as the school year approached and she got further along in her pregnancy. Searching for housing became a full-time job.
..... "I've even gone as far as maybe I should try to port to New York,: Wood said, referring to the process of transferring a voucher to another county or state. "I was looking at Staten Island. You know, maybe if I moved to another county or another state, things would be different? No. this is something that is happening all over.
..... "And so, it's not just a Jersey thing. But because I'm Jersey born and raised, I thought, maybe we can start the enforcement here. Because if not, it's going to continue to happen. And how does that help us?"
..... For now, she decided to stay where she is. She replaced her daughter's full-size bed with a futon, so a bassinet will fit in the room she will now share with the baby. She rearranged kitchen appliances to make counter space for bottles and drying racks. And she called the exterminator one more time.
..... She is still waiting for the state to investigate her complaint. But Wood is hopeful that her drive to speak up - to ask others what they were experiencing - will lead to change.

..... This investigation was made possible through a reporting partnership with Report for America, an initiative that works with news organizations across the nation to revitalize local news by helping to pay the salaries of journalists covering under-reported issues and communities, and a grant from the Jules L. Plangers Jr. Family Foundation.

HOME