RICK’S FAIR HOUSING STORY
(This story is also available in Spanish and Chinese.)
At the Fair Housing Justice Center (FHJC), we often conceptualize contemporary housing discrimination through the metaphor of a “slammed” versus “revolving” door. Before the passage of fair housing laws, housing discrimination was explicit. For example, Black families were told they couldn’t rent in certain neighborhoods because of their race and brokers withheld apartment applications from immigrant families because they spoke with an accent.
As protections have strengthened, however, discrimination has become less obvious and harder to prove. Housing providers have traded blatant discrimination for smiles, handshakes, and politely saying a unit isn’t available. And for the over 3 million New Yorkers with disabilities, housing discrimination can be even more subtle and difficult to detect.
Rick (not his real name) is one of millions of New Yorkers with a physical disability. As a wheelchair user, renter, and an undercover tester for the FHJC, he is uniquely positioned to spot even subtle instances of disability discrimination.
In NYC, landlords are required to pay for accessibility modifications to a home, like widening doorways, installing grab bars, and more. However, Rick explains that, during his undercover tests, housing providers often resist making these changes and even use the fact that their housing is inaccessible as an excuse to refuse to rent to him. They tell Rick he is “more than welcome” to rent a unit, while also stating that they cannot make changes to the unit, effectively blocking him from the housing. Comments like these perpetuate and reinforce segregation while making the needs of individuals with disabilities feel like a preference.
Rick has also experienced disability discrimination outside of his work as a tester. He lives in the Bronx, in the same elevator building he’s called home for the past decade. When the elevator broke down several years ago, the building’s management company put off fixing it. With no working elevator, getting in and out of the building required an enormous amount of effort. Rick had to rely on his friends and family members to help him up and down the stairs. When loved ones were unavailable to help, Rick was forced to miss work and could not leave his home.
A week and a half went by before management fixed the elevator. During this time, Rick grew desperate. He requested to be transferred to an available unit on the first floor of the apartment building: a reasonable accommodation that housing providers in NYC are legally obligated to assist with. Management responded by saying that if Rick moved to a first-floor unit, he would have to pay a higher rent.
Rick was shocked. Not only are ground floor units typically cheaper than units on higher floors, but the ground floor unit was the exact same size as his current one. Rick explained his frustration with the management company, saying, “I don’t want to be on the first floor. But I have a reason.”
On multiple occasions, Rick resorted to paying for-hire movers to carry him up to his third-floor unit. “I had to keep moving,” he explains. While his persistence is admirable, no one’s living situation should reach a point where simply entering and exiting their home is treated like a privilege that must be paid for, and not a fundamental right.
Rick was not the only one suffering the consequences of the building’s broken elevator. The roughly 30% of the tenants in Rick’s building who use wheelchairs faced similar barriers to accessing their homes. Rick points out that this percentage doesn’t even include tenants who depended on the elevator for other reasons: carrying shopping carts, strollers, or assisting seniors who use walkers.
New York City continues to be a challenging city for individuals with disabilities to navigate. Housing providers may use covert language to gatekeep prospective renters, or discourage renters from advocating for the reasonable modifications and accommodations they are rightfully entitled to. However, it’s important to remember that individuals with disabilities have rights as renters in NYC.
Sadly, Rick’s story is not uncommon–but the FHJC serves as a vital resource for anyone with questions about the protections afforded to them by fair housing laws.
To view our factsheets on fair housing rights, click here.
This newsletter is part of the FHJC’s My Fair Housing Story outreach initiative. To read the other stories in the series as they are published, click HERE or visit bit.ly/FHJCmfhs.
The mission of the FHJC, a nonprofit civil rights organization, is to eliminate housing discrimination, promote policies and programs that foster open, accessible, and inclusive communities, and strengthen enforcement of fair housing laws in the New York City region.