Eastchester fights housing bias case, wants town residents first in line for senior complex

Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson writes about a housing bias in Eastchester.

Patricia Harvey, a retired school employee who lives with her two sons and their children in Mount Vernon, has been looking for an affordable senior apartment in the region. For six years.

She wouldn’t mind living at the 119-unit senior housing complex rising on Jackson Avenue in Eastchester, just four miles away, near her cardiologist's office. 

“It’s pretty rough around here on (South) Third Avenue," said Harvey, 71. "My doctor suggests I live in a situation with as little stress as possible. I’d love something up there.”

Her chances of landing an apartment at the new complex, however, could be slim. The town favors a residency preference for Eastchester residents for senior housing and Section 8 housing voucher programs. It’s a policy that housing advocates — in a federal civil rights case pending in U.S. District Court in White Plains — say discriminates against racial minorities like Harvey because residents of the predominantly white town of Eastchester are first in line.

On the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Fair Housing Act, Eastchester has refused to settle the case filed last year by the Fair Housing Justice Center, a nonprofit legal group that has won similar cases over residency requirements for housing programs in the Lower Hudson Valley.

At stake in Eastchester is who gets to live in the six-story Elide Manor senior complex, scheduled for occupancy this fall. At least 18 of the 119 units must be affordable units. 

Attorney Diane Houk told Tax Watch that residency requirements like those in Eastchester were popular in New York and have served to exclude racial minorities from predominantly white municipalities.

“We want to catch it on the front end in Eastchester, before the discrimination happens,” said Houk, who represents the Fair Housing Justice Center. 

COMPLAINT: Fair Housing Justice Center v. Eastchester 

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Eastchester Supervisor Anthony Colavita declined comment, citing the ongoing litigation. In the town’s legal papers, attorney Brian Sokoloff denied that Eastchester discriminated against any applicants. He also argued that the town’s Section 8 regulations were approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Eastchester’s decision to fight the case has echoes to the resistance mustered on its western boundary by the city of Yonkers in the mid-1980s when it faced a lawsuit under the Fair Housing Act. Yonkers eventually lost, after amassing $40 million in legal fees, and more than $1 million in penalties.

In 2017, Eastchester paid Sokoloff's firm $92,000, records show. There are no bills yet submitted for 2018, said town clerk Linda Laird. 

To obtain permits for the senior housing on Jackson Avenue, Eastchester-based Elide Building Corp. agreed to abide by the town’s zoning ordinance, which requires that town residents get first dibs on the units. Elide's website notes that applications were anticipated to be accepted this spring. Executives at Elide did not return numerous phone messages.

Eastchester rules              

The town of Eastchester, which includes the villages of Bronxville and Tuckahoe, is popular among commuters who take the train to Manhattan from Metro-North's Bronxville or Crestwood stations.

Its population of 19,600 is 85 percent white, 8 percent Asian, 5 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent black, according to U.S. Census reports.

WACKY: Westchester residents often don't know where they live

Eastchester remains one of Westchester's remaining hotbeds of Republican power. It’s where former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who waged a spirited battle against the county's federal housing settlement, won his greatest plurality in 2017, with 61 percent of the vote in his failed bid for a third term.

Santo Roberts, who lives in a neighborhood by the senior complex, said he supports residency preferences at Elide Manor, which will serve tenants aged 55 and older. He said it was part of the trade-off with the neighborhood, which was concerned with increased traffic from the complex.

“If local people are not the ones to benefit from the project, what good is it?” he said.

But Eastchester resident Janet Harrison, who wants her town to settle the lawsuit and eliminate the residency requirement, said Eastchester needs to do what’s right for all races.

“Racism is inculcated in our society, and I don’t think Eastchester escapes it,” she said.

The pecking order of preference

Under town regulations for senior housing, the first preference goes to Eastchester residents aged 55 or older, with prioriity given to those who have lived in town the longest, according to the lawsuit. The second preference goes to immediate family members of current or former town residents. Relatives of former town residents are given the next priority. 

Then comes Westchester County residents, though those who once lived in Eastchester would be in line before Harvey.

There’s also a residency preference for Eastchester residents at the town’s Section 8 voucher program. It provides federal housing assistance for renters in private apartments, with tenants paying 30 percent of their income for rent, and the government paying the rest.

The Fair Housing Justice Center found that one African American applicant languished on the Section 8 list for 12 years before receiving a voucher in 2017. A white town resident, meanwhile, waited less than a month before receiving a voucher in 2016.

“Residency preferences were a way for governments to bribe their communities, by telling them that the housing was not for ‘those people,’ but for their own,” said Alec Roberts, executive director of Community Housing Innovations in White Plains. “But that can perpetuate segregation, depending on the universe of those who get preferences that you are picking from.”

The U.S. Census and federal housing data determined that 87 percent of income-eligible households in Eastchester are white, compared to 46 percent in Westchester County, according to the lawsuit. Five percent were African American, compared to 20 percent countywide. Hispanics comprised 4 percent of Eastchester’s eligible population, compared to 30 percent countywide.

Since 2002, 66 percent of applicants for town housing vouchers were non-white, yet only 27 percent of voucher recipients were non-white.             

Bedford and Yorktown settle

A similar lawsuit was filed a year ago in Bedford, when the Fair Housing Justice Center was joined by Westchester Residential Opportunities to challenge the residency preferences for the town's middle-income housing program. Unlike Eastchester, which has sought a jury trial to determine if its regulations violate federal law, the town of Bedford in late June settled its case.

The town agreed to rewrite its zoning code, change its application criteria, and pay the nonprofit organizations $165,000 to settle the claim.

“We don’t agree with the allegations of discrimination, but have decided to make the changes,” said Bedford Supervisor Chris Burdick. “We felt it was better to resolve it in this fashion.”

The town of Yorktown settled a similar case in 2012, abolishing its residency preference and agreeing to reorder its Section 8 waiting list, with non-white applicants from high-poverty areas outside of Yorktown going to the top of the list, and Yorktown residents falling to the bottom. It also paid $165,000 to the legal group. 

“The Fair Housing Justice Center was meticulous and very thorough,” recalls attorney Jim Glaathaar, who represented the town.

Eastchester, however, wants a jury to decide.

While WRO is not a party to the Eastchester case, its fair housing director Marlene Zarfus questioned the town’s legal strategy.

“I can’t believe they are that stupid,” she said on July 14, during a break at the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors workshop on fair housing. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Meanwhile, Patricia Harvey said she may consider applying for one of the Elide Manor apartments, just four miles up Route 22 from her children and her grandchildren.

“I’d just like to live out the years I have left in some peace and quiet,” she said. “I’d just like a place of my own.”

Follow Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson on Facebook or on Twitter @davidmckay415.