| Wednesday, May 15, 2002 - 02:55 am This month, writer Vicki Richman shares her experience and research on the tenant blacklist. Vicki was recently evicted from her long time apartment by Columbia University after a grueling appellate pro se battle (first reported here at RWN, and you can read all about it at http://www.vicric.com. Tenants who have been to housing court for any reason, to request repairs, to seek proper accounting of their rents, to fight eviction, or even due to clerical errors, are systematically blacklisted by the New York real estate industry. In the heat of a housing crunch with low vacancy rates, this Tenant Blacklist can devestate its victims and may be a major cause of the rise of homeless families citywide. Since the Andrea v. The Giant story last year Rent Wars has been working on this issue but, due to issues with volunteer reporters, we haven't been able to put the story together until Vicki came along with her own blacklisting experience. A journalist and member of the writers union, Vicki Richman scores a slam dunk expose for all tenants who are, or may soon be, on the Tenant Blacklist. Now without further delay Rent Wars presents: Landlords Blacklist Tenants Who've Been to Court by Vicki Richman "You can't get an apartment if you were evicted," said the broker before she hung up on me. "The reason doesn't matter." I had already been refused two apartments because my landlord had booted me. I learned to lead off by trying to explain why I had been in court five years, arguing my right to succeed to rent-control tenancy. The landlord, Columbia University, finally won the case in the Appellate Division, and began physical removal as soon as the final decision was handed down, early in 2002. We had precious little time to escape with as many of my family's treasured possessions as we could grab before the marshals swept down on us. But in trying to find a new home, we faced a new question on the landlord boilerplate: "Have you ever been in Housing Court?" No space was available for the reason or for the outcome. Our mere presence on the court roll call was sufficient to deny us an apartment. Suppose I said that I had never been in Housing Court. Wouldn't work. There are at least two databases that provide that information, gleaned from public records. But only owners or realtors, who must supply a deed or an active license, may subscribe. In addition to appearances in Housing Court, the databases provide credit checks, and they are governed by consumer law requiring them to copy prospective tenants on their reports, with a way to refute the data. The most popular database is the New American Registry, known simply as "The Registry" in the industry. Another is American Tenant Service, or "ATS." The Web pages show that they invite landlords to supply additional information on tenants, such as identifying alleged "troublemakers," without giving tenants a clear and definite opportunity for rebuttal. ATS called my case an "eviction" three years before I lost. The Registry more accurately identified me simply as the defendant, but failed to show that the case had nothing to do with nonpayment. With marshals circling my door, the time and effort for formal rebuttal made such protection moot. Landlords are surely not looking only for deadbeat tenants; a simple credit report would turn them up. A name on the Housing Court roll call reveals nothing about credit worthiness. Does the tenant tend to question the landlord's orders? That's what the landlord wants to know. In our case, Columbia ordered us out, claiming I could not succeed my mother. I disputed that opinion, and it took the courts five years to decide who was right. But in searching for a new home, I found myself blacklisted for not vacating voluntarily to spare the landlord the burden of proving the case in court. In other cases, a tenant may have taken the landlord to court for gross violations and even won. But in looking for a new home such renters would find themselves shut out simply for upholding the law. Landlords don't want tenants who fight for their rights. "Blacklisting, discrimination, exorbitant rents, poor service, unsanitary housing, oppressive leases, are some of the recognized evils which can be ameliorated if not eliminated by an effective association of tenants." The Hon. J. Levy, of the Bronx Municipal Court, wrote that in 1938, when there was no Housing Court. An African-American tenant -- identified only as the wife of the defendant, James Coulter -- had started such a activist group in her tenement. She and her family were evicted for her trouble. She became so well-known in her community that no other landlord would rent to her. Agreeing that she was blacklisted for her activism, not her skin color, Judge Levy gave her an extra six months to find a new home. In 1962 William F. Buckley sued the president of Hunter College for citing Buckley's political views as reason to deny him rental of a meeting hall. The court ruled that, unlike a profit-seeking landlord, a municipal-college president may not restrain free speech. Small help to anyone who needs a home, not a campus meeting hall! However, a significant, but indirect, blow to blacklisting was delivered by the United States Supreme Court in 1972. Holding injury to their reputation in the community and to their social and professional opportunities, two tenants sued a landlord for discriminating against blacks. The lower courts ruled that only a black plaintiff who had been denied an apartment could prevail in such a suit. Existing tenants could not object to refusal to rent to others. "The person on the landlord's blacklist," wrote Justice Douglas for the court, unanimously overturning the earlier decisions in Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life, "is not the only victim of discriminatory housing practices; it is . . . 'the whole community' . . . ." While the case was only about the Civil Rights Act of 1968 -- not the First Amendment -- the justice's reasoning could be held to extend the Buckley decision to include private landlords. Systematic, unjust exclusion deprives existing tenants of good neighbors. Simply put, tenant groups, like the Met Council, have devoted all their time to protecting tenants and none to protecting prospective tenants. No pro bono group has yet used the case law, skimpy as it is, for a definitive lawsuit to stop blacklisting. Home-hunters rely on civil-rights groups to protect them from discrimination by race, gender, marital status, disability, or sexual orientation*. But, although the law protects existing tenants from retaliatory eviction, there is no statute to stop blacklisting for political action or corrective litigation. And no activism exists to plug that gap, which realtors and managers are taking gleeful advantage of. Blatantly, openly, unashamedly, they are refusing to rent to anyone who has used tenant law or the First Amendment to protect herself from a landlord. end * Editors note: in NYC there is also statutory protection for attorneys against housing discrimination, but there is little protection for their pro se victims.
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| Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 10:00 pm The New York Times recently revisited this issue (from a more landlord friendly perspective): http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E0D8163FF931A25753C1A9659C8B63
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| Monday, October 27, 2003 - 12:17 pm Here is another story that was done by Columbia University: http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/bronxbeat/1999/march/march8/blacklist.html
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| Saturday, October 16, 2004 - 11:27 am Here are two more links from TenantNet: read the whole article here: http://nytimes.com/2004/02/27/nyregion/27real.html read the two original NYTimes articles on blacklisting here: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/realestate/12COV.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/realestate/12SIDE.html
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