Apr 9
2025
Buffalo landlord settles housing discrimination lawsuit
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The Mayflower, owned by Buffalo Management Group. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel
A local real estate and property management company has settled a federal lawsuit accusing its employees and president of violating fair housing laws.
Housing Opportunities Made Equal last November brought litigation against Buffalo Management Group after an investigation concluded that its president, Myron Robbins, established a company-wide policy that employees were not to rent apartments in the Medical Corridor to tenants with children. Discrimination based on familial status is a violation of state and federal fair housing laws.
HOME and Buffalo Management Group last week reached a resolution that will see the groups work together to enforce compliance with fair housing laws and best practices within the company, according to HOME attorney Daniel Corbitt.
Corbitt said the partnership is the most valuable outcome of the resolution, although the settlement includes undisclosed monetary damages as well.
“To have this ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship whereby they’re able to work with us directly, we’re able to proactively address any potential issues, preventing harm, I think that’s much more beneficial overall than a court case that is eventually kind of determined in terms of just dollars and cents,” he said.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomBuffalo Management Group has been operating for more than 30 years and owns and/or manages 28 properties, according to the company’s website.
HOME last year sent testers to two of Buffalo Management Groups’ properties near the Fruit Belt neighborhood — The Mayflower at 66 Summer St. and The Elliott at 171-175 Linwood Ave. — and found that applicants with children were ignored, denied apartment showings and steered to different neighborhoods by the management group’s employees.
According to HOME’s lawsuit, one defendant was told that the management company was “all into young professionals and graduate students” as opposed to large families.
Both The Mayflower and The Elliott are located in Census Tract 67.02, which consists predominantly of renters. A majority of the 1,988 renting households are nonfamily households. Of the 17.5 percent of renters that are families, less than a third have children under the age of 18, according to American Community Survey 2023 5-year estimates.
The median household income for Tract 67.02 is $46,346. For families with children, it’s just $19,056.
Median gross rent for properties in the tract is $1,064 total — just $75 more than the median gross rent citywide — but prices increase dramatically for properties big enough to accommodate families, census data shows. The median for a two-bedroom is $1,188. For a three-bedroom, it’s $2,783.
Rents for The Mayflower and The Elliott range from $1,250 for a one-bedroom apartment to $1,625 for a two-bedroom apartment, according to recent listings on Buffalo Management Group’s website.
Despite settling the case, Buffalo Management Group contests the charges of wrongdoing. That’s a typical response to concerns brought forth by HOME, according to Corbitt.
“Getting defendants or any kind of respondent to admit wrongdoing, it’s usually just not going to happen, and that’s not really our goal here,” Corbitt said. “It was never to force them to publicly admit wrongdoing. It’s really to ensure that they have these proper policies and practices in place.”
Neither Robbins, the company president, nor Jeremy Mitchell, the company’s property manager, responded to a request for comment for this story.
In addition to fair housing violations, HOME was also concerned that Buffalo Management Group’s practices contributed to gentrification of the neighborhood.
The Fruit Belt has been historically Black and consisted predominantly of family households since the 1950s. Community advocates for years have worried about the effects of gentrification caused by the growth of the Buffalo Medical Corridor, with its attendant impacts on parking, rents and property rates, which has forced some families out of the neighborhood.
Dennice Barr, a longtime Fruit Belt resident and community activist, told Investigative Post she views gentrification as more than “the movement of people in and out of a community.” She described it as a “slow depletion of community needs that grows over generations.”
Barr said she’s grateful to HOME for working to expose and end discriminatory practices.
“For all of the people who understand what the harm has been and what it could continue to be, for those who have the ability to be able to do the work and offer the help, I’m always grateful for that,” she said.
