From the May issue: As New York’s rental market begins to recover, landlords and tenants are once again at loggerheads about a controversial method being used to weed out some applicants: blacklists.
Some say tenants are being unfairly blacklisted from renting apartments if they’ve ever tangled with a landlord in court. Whether a tenant has been involved in an eviction proceeding, or even if he has simply withheld rent from a landlord for not making a repair, or just dared to challenge his landlord in court over something as basic as lack of services, he could have a hard time when he looks for a new home.
The issue has recently come up at the Tapestry, a new LEED-certified rental complex from developer Jonathan Rose Cos. After winning a slot through an affordable-housing lottery, a disabled woman named Monique Holloway complained to her local community board that she was denied an apartment because of a seven-year-old housing case, in which Section 8 payments were withheld from a previous landlord because of a lack of repairs. [more]
