The Legal Aid Society, on behalf of two homeless New Yorkers and the Fair Housing Justice Center, challenged landlord Starrett City’s unlawful practice of refusing to rent to applicants with Living in Communities (LINC) Rental Assistance vouchers. The LINC voucher program was created in 2015 to move families and individuals from city shelters into stable housing. In July 2016, a trial judge held that individuals using LINC vouchers are protected from housing discrimination on the basis of their source of income and ordered Starrett City to process our clients’ rental applications.

In April 2017, we moved to amend the complaint to add additional plaintiffs and to certify a class of LINC voucher holders seeking rental housing with Starrett City. Our motion for class certification was stayed pending an appeal of the 2016 order. In April 2018, the First Department reversed the order, holding that to compel landlords to accept LINC Program tenants would violate the Urstadt Law, a state law that prevents cities of one million or more from strengthening rent regulation laws, where acceptance of LINC would require the landlord to charge less than the legal maximum.