NYCHA Will Reform Reasonable Accommodation System in Settlement, Agrees to Improve Systemic Delays

NEW YORK, NY (July 16, 2020) – Today, Legal Services NYC (LSNYC) and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Paul, Weiss) announce the Court-approved settlement of an anti-discrimination lawsuit against NYCHA that will reform the public housing agency’s reasonable accommodation and transfer systems to mitigate systemic delays and ensure that thousands of NYCHA tenants with mobility impairments will receive the accommodations that they need to live with dignity and respect.  

The settlement comes after Willie Espino, Jr., a 63 year-old wheelchair-bound veteran and resident of NYCHA’s Patterson Houses in the Bronx, sued the public housing agency in federal court in 2018 for allegedly violating City, State, and Federal anti-discrimination laws in its public housing projects by failing for nearly a decade to install a ramp at his apartment building or transfer him to a building with a wheelchair-accessible entryway. The settlement also includes a cash amount to be paid to Mr. Espino (the amount is confidential).
 
Read the filed settlement here. 
Read the 2018 complaint here. 

“I have always wanted to fight not just for myself but for all of my neighbors with disabilities who may have issues with NYCHA like I have had,” said Plaintiff Willie Espino, Jr. “In my building alone, there were several other disabled people who were also experiencing hardship not having a ramp to enter and exit the building. My hope is that, with this settlement, other disabled NYCHA tenants will not have to experience harm like I suffered. Discrimination against disabled people is never right, and nobody should be treated poorly like I was treated.”

In his complaint, Mr. Espino claimed that, in 2011, he requested a reasonable accommodation for his mobility impairment in accordance with NYCHA procedures and that through 2018, Mr. Espino made numerous additional requests for an accommodation, including for the installation of a ramp at the entrance of his apartment building or a transfer to a wheelchair-accessible apartment building. But, each time, the public housing agency failed to fulfill his request. Worse, NYCHA delayed installing a ramp at the entrance of Mr. Espino’s building even after a Bronx Housing Court judge ordered NYCHA to install the ramp. 

Without wheelchair access to his apartment building, Mr. Espino became a prisoner in his own home, unable to make his medical appointments and surgeries or even enjoy a breath of outside air without waiting in his lobby, sometimes for hours, for a neighbor to help him lay down a flimsy, makeshift ramp—fashioned from a piece of plywood—that he resorted to using to enter and exit his home with his 350-pound wheelchair. 

NYCHA’s delay in providing an accommodation to Mr. Espino was caused by systemic problems in NYCHA’s reasonable accommodation and transfer systems. Because of NYCHA’s ineffective and opaque systems, Mr. Espino did not receive an accommodation for his mobility impairment for more than eight years, despite the fact that NYCHA recognized his need for an accommodation. As part of the settlement, NYCHA has agreed to amend its policies and procedures, including to provide more information to mobility-impaired tenants about their rights to transfer to buildings and apartments that accommodate their mobility impairments, to regularly update tenants who have been approved for transfers but whose transfers have not been effectuated, and to reform the dead-end waitlist system that puts tenants with different accommodation needs on the same waitlist for fully-accessible apartments. 

“New York City’s affordable housing shortage means scores of disabled low-income New Yorkers must choose between being a prisoner in a NYCHA building or living in a homeless shelter,” said Sara Smith, Staff Attorney with LSNYC. “Our client, Mr. Espino, fought hard not only for his right to a reasonable accommodation, but for a settlement that improves the disability accommodation transfer system to ensure that every NYCHA tenant living with a disability has the right to enter and exit their home without being made to feel like a second-class citizen. No one deserves to be trapped by inaccessibility, and we’re hopeful that this settlement will ensure that NYCHA complies with the law and treats tenants living with disabilities with dignity.” The LSNYC team also includes Director of Litigation Christopher D. Lamb, Housing Unit Deputy Director Heejung Kook, and Staff Attorney Johanna Ocana. 

“This settlement—following years of hard-fought litigation—is a landmark victory for our client and every mobility-impaired New Yorker living in NYCHA housing,” said Paul, Weiss partner William A. Clareman. “With the changes to NYCHA’s policies and procedures that were secured through this settlement, mobility-impaired tenants will be able to request and obtain reasonable accommodations (such as transfers to apartments in buildings with wheelchair ramps) more quickly and easily and in a more transparent manner. We are hopeful that, moving forward, the changes that NYCHA has agreed to implement will markedly improve the lives of many of New York’s most vulnerable citizens.” The Paul, Weiss team also includes associates Brad D. Feldman, Rachel Finkel, and Steven Kessler.

Approximately 20% of NYCHA’s 400,000 tenants are age 62 or older, many of whom have mobility limitations. Accessibility failures have long plagued the public housing agency. More than 20 years after NYCHA struck a deal with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development by agreeing to make 5%—or 8,900—of its apartments “fully accessible” for wheelchair users, records show that NYCHA is significantly behind, upgrading only one third of the goal. 

 
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