Suit claims Eastchester building’s super and landlord discriminated against black renters

An Eastchester building’s landlord and superintendent tried to keep black tenants from renting out units by giving them false information, a new lawsuit charges. The Fair Housing Justice Center in New York City and three black people who posed as prospective tenants filed the suit after they and other “testers” went to the building at 9 New Street over the course of three months, LoHud reported. According to the suit, the building’s superintendent encouraged the white testers by giving them his phone number and rental applications and “encourag[ing] them to return the paperwork to him,” but told black testers that “there was a waiting list for units, that they had to get an application from a broker, and, in some cases, didn’t give his phone number,” the outlet reported. The center’s executive director Fred Freiberg said that building’s practices “are, sadly, not that uncommon.” The building’s owner, New Property Associates, has an ownership stake in “hundreds of rental units” in Westchester County and Long Island, according to the suit. [LoHud]