Eight Remarkable Housing Works Legal Victories
1) Hernandez v. Barrios Paoli: In 1997, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that all welfare recipients would be forced to undergo an “eligibility verification review” (EVR) prior to obtaining subsistence benefits. This onerous process required individuals living with AIDS to travel to Brooklyn for an interview and then to wait at home for an unscheduled inspection. Failure to comply would result in a denial or termination of benefits.
For clients unable to travel, and/or compelled to attend health care and other appointments, EVR was profoundly difficult or impossible to fulfill, part of the Mayor’s strategy to reduce the welfare rolls by making the application process as cumbersome and difficult as possible. Housing Works filed suit, and in 1999, as reported on the front page of the New York Times, a unanimous Court of Appeals ruled that the EVR was illegal and must be eliminated.
2) Hanna v. Turner: In 1998, the New York City began denying shelter to homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS, telling such individuals to “make your own arrangements.” Homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS and other accompanying maladies were forced to fight for their survival on the streets—even in the middle of winter. In court, the City argued for the right to turn folks away if they housed them the next day, i.e, if clients survived the night on the streets. In November 1999, Supreme Court Judge Emily Jane Goodman issued a landmark ruling establishing the right of homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS to same-day placement in emergency housing, the first such ruling in the United States.
3) Hanna v. Turner (contempt): Beginning in late 2000, New York City again began to routinely deny emergency housing to homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS, a result of the City’s failure, year after year, to construct or secure medically appropriate housing for homeless people living with HIV/AIDS. A “Human Rights Watch” was established to chronicle these violations, and with the testimony of current New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Housing Works brought contempt proceedings against the City. In 2001, the Appellate Division unanimously upheld the lower court’s finding of contempt, in which the court ordered the City to pay fines to those denied housing and to immediately provide emergency housing to all such clients.
4) Winds v. Turner: The emergency housing that New York City was providing to homeless people living with AIDS in the late 1990s and early 2000s was deplorable and life-threatening, as the City’s own studies concluded. In Winds v. Turner, Housing Works successfully challenged the City’s failure to provide medically appropriate emergency housing to homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS.
In a September 2002 decision, New York Supreme Court Judge Eileen Bransten ruled that the plaintiffs had established “that their housing is not suitable for healthy individuals, much less for ‘persons with severely compromised immune systems.’” Judge Bransten explained that “housing that is not habitable because of vermin, filth, lack of furnishings and inaccessibility, certainly cannot be considered ‘suitable.’” Judge Bransten found the facilities provided to petitioners by HASA “deficient in several respects,” and ordered the City immediately to remedy these defects.
5) Henrietta D. v. Bloomberg: This landmark class action lawsuit, which spanned nearly a decade, established that governments must provide reasonable accommodations in the manner in which they provide subsistence benefits to indigent clients living with AIDS, from low case manager-to-clients ratios to home and hospital visits.
Following trial in 2000, as reported on the front page of the New York Times, Newsday, and other newspapers and media, Judge Sterling Johnson issued a 97-page decision forcefully condemning the New York City and State for “chronically and systematically” failing to serve indigent New Yorkers living with AIDS, “with devastating consequences.”
In 2003, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision, establishing for the first time that plaintiffs need not prove disparate treatment under the Americans with Disabilities Act to establish a failure to provide reasonable accommodations. In 2004, the United States Supreme Court dismissed the defendants’ appeal, rendering the decision final. Meanwhile, the City’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) was placed under a federal monitor. For four years, Housing Works reviewed monthly performance reports, operated a “troubleshooter” office to expedite resolution of thousands of client complaints against HASA, and conducted monthly on-site inspections of DASIS centers to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
6) Rawles v. The Educational Alliance: In 2004, Housing Works sued the Educational Alliance (EA), a major New York nonprofit, over its blanket refusal to provide housing to a homeless transgender woman. Housing Works secured a settlement in which EA agreed to pay the plaintiff a fair sum and, in addition, to implement systemic changes to ensure the proper treatment of transgender applicants and clients.
Those changes included providing staff with sensitivity training on properly serving and working with transgender applicants and clients; adopting policies and procedures for serving transgender clients; using its best efforts to admit and retain qualified transgender applicants in at least one room in EA’s housing facilities; and using its best efforts to hire and retain at least one transgender employee.
7) Melendez v. Wing: In 2003, Housing Works challenged a new State policy that significantly reduced public assistance benefits for HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) family cases with a child receiving federal disability payments. Previously, New York City and State considered the disabled child as “invisible,” meaning that her disability benefits were not counted when calculating the family’s rental allowance.
The State’s decision to include the disabled child’s payments in the family budget—in violation of New York law—led to a drastic reduction in public assistance payments for the HASA families in question, including the Melendez family, whose public assistance was reduced by a whopping $500 per month.
Ultimately, the New York Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the Ztate and city defendants violated the law in forcing Ms. Melendez (and hundreds of other families) to count the disabled child’s SSI payments as available family income. The decision greatly assisted a similar lawsuit brought by thousands of non-HASA welfare recipients, Doe v. Doar, which followed Melendez and ensured “invisibility” for non-HASA family cases.
8) Keith Cylar Act: In 2005, Housing Works played a critical role in formulating and drafting the Keith Cylar (named after Housing Works cofounder), an act that ensures accountability and protection for tens of thousands of indigent New York City residents living with AIDS. This historic act requires the City to provide the New York City Council with detailed quarterly performance reports regarding its success in providing intensive case management, timely delivery of benefits and services, and medically appropriate housing to more than 41,000 HASA clients living with AIDS and their families.
