Madeline Reichman testifies on Legal Aid, CCHR funding, and shelter discrimination

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Madeline Reichman.

I'm a staff attorney in the Civil Law Reform Unit at the Legal Aid Society and a former agency attorney at the Commission on Human Rights.

Thank you to Chairs Hanif and Nurse for hosting this oversight hearing on CCHR's disability enforcement.

As we all know, New York City has the broadest anti-discrimination law in the nation and very strong protections for people with disabilities, but the law is only as good as its enforcement.

We strongly believe that CCHR needs additional funding to adequately enforce the city human rights law's disability protections.

everywhere, but particularly in housing and shelter.

The Legal Aid Society takes as many disability rights cases as we can, but we're unable to take on every type of case.

In particular, we've settled class actions against CAMBA, Inc.

For

failing to offer reasonable accommodations to their supportive housing tenants.

We're currently litigating a group case against one of the city's worst landlords in Brooklyn for severe outages of a wheelchair lift and elevators in the building.

And we're currently monitoring the settlement agreement in our Butler litigation, which is a class action brought against the New York City Department of Homeless Services.

for disability discrimination against disabled New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.

And I would like to flag later on in my testimony the need for increased enforcement in the homeless shelter system where disability discrimination is endemic despite our litigation.