NYC-approved company caught immediately rejecting low-income housing applicants for having criminal records: lawsuit

A company approved by New York City to match low-income applicants with affordable apartments was caught immediately rejecting people with criminal records — in violation of fair housing laws and city rules, a new lawsuit alleges.

The Brooklyn-based agency, known as iAfford, does business with the motto, “Find it. Get it.”

iAfford was approved by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to vet clients for potential housing. But under HPD rules, applicants can’t be rejected simply because they once did time.

According to the lawsuit filed Friday by the Fortune Society in Brooklyn Federal Court, iAfford “project managers” were recorded telling callers they had no chance if they had been convicted of a crime.

“Usually people with criminal backgrounds are rejected, like, overall,” a project manager with iAfford said in a recorded conversation in August 2021, the lawsuit says.

Joanne Page, the president of the Fortune Society, which advocates for former prisoners, said the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has been a leader in strengthening rules around housing discrimination.

“This isn’t about HPD’s policies,” Page said. “It’s about a marketing agent that flagrantly violates the laws while saying it is enforcing them. You can’t do a blanket ban under the fair housing laws.”

HPD spokesman William Fowler credited the Fortune Society for bringing the lawsuit and said the agency would closely follow it. He noted the city’s rules prevent looking longer than five years in the past for certain offenses.

“New Yorkers with a history in the criminal justice system deserve affordable housing just as much as their neighbors,” he said. “Our policies ensure any person’s prior involvement in the justice system is not considered in a vacuum, as prior convictions do not define who we are as people.”

The case started in April 2021 when a Fortune Society client with a criminal record applied for an apartment through iAfford. He was immediately rejected at the prescreening stage and his attempts to appeal were ignored, the lawsuit says.

iAfford handles applications for hundreds of apartments through the city’s Housing Connect website, the lawsuit alleges. The company is paid by the owners of the apartments it lists, HPD said.

After their client was rejected, the Fortune Society hired an outside company to conduct a sting by having actors apply for apartments through iAfford, the lawsuit said.

In September 2021, another project manager told one of the actors, “If there is any criminal background on [an applicant’s] credit report, then we are forced to reject their application.”

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“It’s not iAfford’s policy, but it’s HPD’s,” the project manager claimed.

“When they do a credit check, if your criminal record shows up on your credit report, then that is going to make you ineligible to proceed,” a third project manager told an applicant in December.

Under HPD policy, iAfford is supposed to do an “individualized assessment” which takes into account a range of factors, rather than just rejecting people on the spot.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction against the firm and damages for expenses the Fortune Society incurred in uncovering the alleged unlawful practices.

Lila Miller, a lawyer with the Washington, D.C., law firm Relman Colfax, which specializes in discrimination cases, is representing Fortune Society in the suit.

“What makes this case urgent is when you have people just out of prison, they are more likely to need affordable housing. The cards are stacked against them,” Miller said. “The fact that they were touting this as HPD’s policy could have had a chilling effect across the affordable housing market.”

The Daily News emailed six officials with iAfford and left several phone messages. No one responded.