By JODI SOKOLOWSKI
Buffalo Law Journal

Forty years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act, many people seeking housing still face discrimination because of their race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or handicap.

"We've got a long way to go," said Rosalie Covial, who was a discrimination tester for Buffalo's Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) in the mid-1960s. "You just can't legislate people's hearts, minds and attitudes."

Nationally and locally, claims of discrimination based on disability and race are most frequent - out of 10,000 complaints nationwide last year, 43 percent were for the former and 37 percent for the latter. Complaints of bias based on prospective renters or buyers' source of income or their familial status are also common in the Buffalo area.

Carol Gostomski, a married mother of two, reported one such incident after looking into vacant units at the Sherwood Terrace Apartments. When she arrived for her appointment with her 6- and 9-year-old sons in tow, she says, the owner refused to rent to her, telling her the boys "could fall off the balcony, get injured and you could sue me."

"I didn't think he could actually tell me ‘No.' In my mind, I was thinking, ‘If you don't rent to me, I could sue you now,' " Gostomski said of the April 2005 incident.

After she approached HOME, which filed a housing-discrimination complaint on her behalf, the New York State Division of Human Rights ordered the Tonawanda apartment complex to pay more than $45,000 in fines and attorneys' fees, plus an $8,000 civil award to the family.

The owner is appealing the ruling, which was the largest award ordered by the state in a housing case in the Buffalo area in a decade.

Gostomski said she has yet to see a dime from the settlement. She encourages others to start the process immediately, even though complainants have up to a year to file, and to stick it out.

"It's a long process, but they're not going to get away with it anymore," she said.

Ongoing outreach

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is conducting an outreach campaign to make real estate agents, rental-unit managers and community organizations aware of federal, state and municipal housing-discrimination laws, including those governing property advertisements.

"Right now, the trend may be that there are more cases coming to the forefront, but we believe with outreach, those who discriminate will be doing less of that activity," said Andrij Pryshlak, Buffalo director of HUD's Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Office.

A defense based on ignorance of discrimination laws, he said, "no longer flies," Pryshlak said. Property owners and managers are today more aware of what is against the law, and more housing seekers know that there are nonprofits that can help them file a complaint.

Cases can start at the federal level, but housing-discrimination claims usually start with community organizations like HOME and move on to the New York State Division of Human Rights. Claims that allege complex or systemic discrimination, as in the case of a pending complaint against Kensington Village, are taken on by HUD.

"We see a constant volume of reported incidents of discrimination, but those incidents are just the tip of a much larger iceberg that exists," said HOME's executive director, Scott Gehl.

Covial, an African-American who said she has experienced housing discrimination firsthand, said HOME is just as active now as it was in the 1960s.

"I've always heard that Buffalo was a highly discriminated area, so I'm not surprised," she said, noting that her son faces less discrimination in Raleigh, N.C., than the family has witnessed in Western New York.

New laws needed?

Even though New York state has relatively progressive anti-discrimination laws, and local municipalities including the City of Buffalo and the towns of Hamburg and West Seneca have expanded protections, Gehl said source-of-income discrimination is a problem in other Western New York communities.

"Few people will admit the reasons for discrimination, and they'll attempt to conceal it," he said.

Gehl is calling for stronger fair-housing laws. As an example of those he believes need changing, he cites a Buffalo law that exempts owner-occupied homes that are two-family units and three-family parcels.

"It's incredible that such a law would be passed or enacted by the City of Buffalo in 2006, yet it was," Gehl said.

Dollars and sense

Fair-housing advocates stress that residential developers, apartment-complex owners and individual real estate investors are protecting their bottom line when they comply with fair-housing statutes.

"If (a property manager) opens the doors to everyone, their potential clientèle list should grow and their business should flourish," Pryshlak said.

Making buildings accessible for people with disabilities benefits everyone in the long run, Gehl added.

"National research has shown that the cost of making units accessible is negligible," he said. "We're all getting older, so we'll also be able to benefit (from accessible housing) as time goes by."