New Rochelle, New York — A major player in Westchester County's real estate industry has settled a discrimination lawsuit with New York State.
Attorney General Letitia James says Century 21 Marciano, a prominent New Rochelle company, denied housing opportunities to low-income renters.
The business, located on North Avenue, has fair housing laws posted in the windows, but James refused to rent to the undercover agent after the company mentioned using Section 8 vouchers to pay rent. , said that it violated the same law.
“This is a form of discrimination. It's actually a form of profiling that lumps all low-income people into the automatic rejection basket,” said fair housing advocate Alexander Roberts.
Roberts said undercover testing is an important tool for enforcing the law, and that's what happened here.
Employees of a housing rights group posed as prospective tenants and inquired about four rental properties listed by Marciano, including a one-bedroom apartment complex on Hilltop Avenue.
According to the settlement, when the fake tenant used the Section 8 voucher to bring it out, Marciano's attorney responded: 8 vouchers. Two other people had vouchers for him and he said “no”.
That violates New York state law.
In the settlement, Mr. Marciano agreed to pay $40,000 and house nine Section 8 tenants in apartments owned by the company.
“This settlement is really, really exciting and wonderful,” Roberts said. “This settlement will result in the creation of nine affordable housing units in Westchester County.”
Roberts said the incident is an important reminder to brokers and agents to abide by the letter of the law posted on their counters.
The settlement also requires Century 21 Marciano to waive brokerage fees for applicants seeking to use government housing vouchers.
