After Discrimination Suit, Disabled Get Access to Condo
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Five disabled adults are going to get a group home in a Washington Heights condominium whose board had tried to bar them.
As part of a court settlement this month, the organization behind the group home has purchased two units at the condominium for about $1.3 million. The sale came after a federal judge ruled in favor of the Young Adult Institute in its discrimination lawsuit against the condominium’s board.
“It’s really not tolerable in New York City in the United States of America at this point in time to stand in the way of this sale,” the judge who presided over the lawsuit, Alvin Hellerstein, said, according to a transcript of a March hearing about the case. Of the five adults, who suffer varying degrees of mental retardation, Judge Hellerstein said, “They are our neighbor’s children and they need to be able to live in dignity, and the law does not allow discrimination.”
The condominium, called the Bennett, is on West 187th Street.
The dispute started last year when the condominium board exercised its right of first refusal against the Young Adult Institute, which runs similar homes across the city and Long Island. The adults currently live either with their parents or in group settings.
A lawyer for the Bennett, Richard Marin, said the board had had valid reasons for not originally selling the two units to the Young Adult Institute.
“I know there were significant allegations of discrimination, but that is not what was driving the board’s action,” Mr. Marin said.
Mr. Marin said the board was concerned about overcrowding. The “catalyst” for the settlement, Mr. Marin said, was the Young Adult Institute’s assurance that only five people would live in the two units. Mr. Marin also said the board had wanted to give a neighbor adjacent to one of the units a chance to purchase it.
An associate executive director of the Young Adult Institute, Thomas Dern, said the group will likely move in to the Bennett within three months.
“It’s totally discrimination,” Mr. Dern said of the opposition the group originally faced.
