Observers of the housing scene watched with interest when a Manhattan judge upheld a new law this past week that makes it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants who receive government Section 8 subsidies.

Use of Section 8 vouchers by tenants went up 8.3 percent within the past year, according to Howard Marder, spokesperson for the city Housing Authority. There are now 92,423 Section 8 tenants in the city – an all-time high – with 33,500 of them in Brooklyn.

But the question remains – how popular is Section 8 with city landlords? Until the economic crash, many people believed that as housing values rose, some landlords wanted Section 8 tenants out of their apartments so they could rent them at the higher market rents.

According to Marder, the neighborhoods nowadays with the largest concentrations of Section 8 immigrants are Borough Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush, Brighton Beach, East New York, Stuyvesant Heights and others.

Mitchell Posilkin, general counsel of the Rent Stabilization Association, an organization of landlords who own buildings subject to rent regulations in New York City, said that many landlords value Section 8 because of its government guarantee of rents. Others, however, avoid the program because of its over-bureaucratic regulations.

“Some landlords,” he said, “have both Housing Authority-administered Section 8 and HPD [Housing Preservation and Development]-administered Section 8, so you have two sets of regulations, two groups of people to deal with.” He called dealing with Section 8 “labor-intensive” and “burdensome.”

Pat Singer, head of the Brighton Beach Neighborhood Association, said that since the aforementioned anti-discrimination law passed, things have been better for tenants seeking Section 8 apartments. Still, she said, although in the past, the government paid only part of Section 8 tenants’ rent, many landlords now want and expect the government to pay the entire check.

In addition, she said, many landlords are frustrated by the slow pace of the program’s bureaucracy. “One landlord updated his information with a new lease [which includes higher rents]. He’s now been waiting seven months for the increased payments ? Landlords accept the situation, but they’re not thrilled with it.”

From 1994 until 2007, the Housing Authority’s Section 8 lists were closed and no new vouchers were issued. The Housing Authority’s Web site says that now, it is only taking applications for vouchers from emergency cases.

(Source: Brooklyn Eagle)