The curiosity of a socialist owning real estate inspires much teasing from my friends. But why shouldn’t I own my own home? As our comrade, Barbara Garson has proven in her book, "Money Makes the World Go Around”, unless you stuff your cash in the mattress, you are inevitably invested in evil deeds. So why not invest in an evil that you control, your home? Taking a step further, I’ve been serving on my apartment co-op’s board of directors for about a year now. For a rickety, yet charming, old building our charge is a series of uncomfortable decisions. Should we delay refurbishing the elevator, or raise the monthly maintenance charge? Paint the lobby, or give the Super a raise? I sidestepped our controversial decision to begin eviction proceedings against one of our rent controlled tenants by not having been elected to the board by that time, but I have been a part of nearly half a dozen instances of that most New York real estate process, the co-op board interview and purchase approval.

We’re a pretty chill board. We don’t have any stringent financial requirements. We’ve approved buyers who put down as low as five percent (when just about every other building in the neighborhood requires a 20 percent down payment), figuring that even if you default on your loan, we’ll make our money back one way or the other. We also assume pets innocent before being proven guilty of loudness or aggression, and therefore don’t have a blanket “no pets” policy. And I, for one, don’t care who your sleep with as long as you are sleeping in your apartment with him or her, and not illegally subletting your place.

Not all boards are as good as this one. The NY Times real estate section is chock full of horror stories of boards using tenant applications as political footballs in struggles over power and wealth, as well as less-well documented instances of purchase applications being rejected for reasons of racism or heterosexism. With more than 332,000 households in New York belonging to co-ops, the City Council is taking action to ensure that hard-fought protections against housing discrimination are not gutted by our “stakeholder society,” by requiring boards to provide prompt and specific justifications for rejecting purchase applications. Our building’s management company – a necessary evil – is, like most management companies, organizing to defeat the bill and seeking to enlist the help of our co-op board members. The Real Estate Board of New York’s lobbying letter concludes, in relevant part:

Int. No. 119 of 2006 will drastically restrict the rights of co-op board members, shareholders and property managers. It will also significantly delay transactions which will hurt the coop market as a whole. More important, it will substantially increase litigation in the marketplace, and make it difficult for coops to recruit qualified shareholders to volunteer their time to be a part of a co-op board.

Any discrimination by board members is expressly forbidden in City, State and Federal law. Currently, under the City Human Rights Law, the New York State Civil Rights Law, and the Federal Fair Housing Act, cooperative boards are prohibited from discriminating against a potential buyer on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, military status, sexual orientation, age pregnancy, or disability. There are remedies within each of these statues for a party who believes he has been discriminated against. The legislation does not add to these protections that are already in place.

In response, I have two points. Firstly, individual members of co-op boards are, for the most part, shielded from personal liability for board decisions – which is a fact that our management companies frequently stress while they, for instance, encourage us to evict our rent controlled tenants. More than fear of litigation, fear of the management companies with which we enter into contract is a more likely culprit for intimidating shareholders from serving on co-op boards. Secondly, while there are plenty of anti-discrimination laws on the books, it is nearly impossible to prosecute such cases if co-op boards need not disclose the reasons for rejecting an applicant. Boards who reject applicants for legitimate reasons (for instance, poor finances, dangerous pets or speculative investments) need not fear the extra scrutiny and paperwork. Boards who run their buildings like the Jim Crow South deserve the exposure and financial liability that this bill threatens. The extra work that it will require on my board’s part will be well worth it to ensure that New York City remains a free and integrated society.