Greystar accused of violating fair housing laws

A housing advocacy organization has filed complaints in six states and the District of Columbia against the private equity firm Greystar, the largest manager of rental property in the U.S., managing more than a million rental housing units. 

 The complaints accuse Greystar of violating fair housing laws by refusing to accept federal housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8, in places that require landlords to accept them.

Testers, posing as prospective tenants, called Greystar offices around the country to ask about available apartments and if they could use housing vouchers to pay the rent. 

“In call after call, Greystar agents told testers that vouchers would not be accepted, imposing unlawful conditions — such as requiring the voucher to cover 100% of the rent — or refusing to count voucher assistance toward minimum income requirements, in direct violation of the law in those states,” according to a statement from Cohen Milstein,the law firm involved in filing the complaints. 

A number of states require landlords to accept vouchers. The Housing Rights Initiative, which coordinated the months-long testing, documented more than 100 violations by Greystar in Maryland, Hawaii, New Jersey, Michigan, California, Virginia, and Washington, DC. 

In Michigan, according to the Metro Times, employees at Greystar properties in Ann Arbor, Lansing, East Lansing and Rochester “repeatedly told testers that vouchers were not accepted or imposed conditions that the Housing Rights Initiative says are illegal under a state law that took effect last year.” 

A Greystar employee at the Landmark Apartments in Ann Arbor told a tester that apartments were available but that Section 8 “won’t be taken here.” Three days later, another Greystar employee said the property didn’t accept vouchers. Additional testers were told that the property didn’t accept vouchers when they called over the following weeks. “Sorry, we don’t participate in any housing programs,” a Greystar employee told one tester. 

A Greystar employee at The View on Collins in Lansing told callers the property would technically accept a voucher but wouldn’t count it towards a requirement that tenants have monthly income at least three times the amount of the rent, meaning that voucher holders would have to qualify for the apartment without the assistance. Another employee told a caller that the apartments were “market rate” and so could not accept vouchers. 

”Greystar has been committing mass civil rights violations at a scale unlike anything our organization has ever seen,” said Aaron Carr, executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative. “When testers called Greystar buildings, they got the same answer over and over -no vouchers. That’s not a glitch; it’s a reprehensible business model.” 

With Section 8 vouchers, tenants pay a portion of their income each month, and the voucher covers the rest. Families can wait for months or even years to get a voucher and have to use them quickly once they get them because the vouchers generally expire after 120 days, Carr said. 

“This is not a paperwork issue,” said Brian Corman, an attorney who represents the Housing Rights Initiative. “Denying housing because the family intends to use a voucher has real consequences on where families can live, where children can go to school, and whether people can achieve housing stability.” 

In a recording of a call shared with the New York Times, after the tester told the Greystar employee that she had a Section 8 voucher and asked if she could use it, the Greystar employee told her, “No, you wouldn’t be able to use it. We can’t accept any vouchers of any kind.” 

Greystar said the company provides training to its employees and expects them to comply with all applicable laws, and that the company “remains committed to fair housing practices in everything we do.” 

The allegations come just weeks after a Guardian investigation reported about how Greystar piled fees on the tenants in its buildings and the impact of those fees on renters.  The Guardian counted at least 125 different named fees that tenants may be charged at Greystar properties.

Last December, Greystar agreed to pay $24 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Colorado that the company misrepresented the true cost of renting a Greystar property by displaying a deceptively low rental price that did not include fees.