Filtering Posts by Custom Taxonomy PHP function? Not working?

Not sure how to make this work but this is the custom taxonomy I created:

function add_custom_taxonomies() {
 global $va_options;
    // Add new taxonomy, make it hierarchical (like categories)
    $labels = array(
        'name'              => __( 'Listing Local Places', APP_TD ),
        'singular_name'     => __( 'Listing Local Place', APP_TD ),
        'search_items'      => __( 'Search Listing Local Places', APP_TD ),
        'all_items'         => __( 'All Local Places', APP_TD ),
        'parent_item'       => __( 'Parent Listing Local Place', APP_TD ),
        'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Listing Local Place:', APP_TD ),
        'edit_item'         => __( 'Edit Listing Local Place', APP_TD ),
        'update_item'       => __( 'Update Listing Local Place', APP_TD ),
        'add_new_item'      => __( 'Add New Listing Local Place', APP_TD ),
        'new_item_name'     => __( 'New Listing Local Place Name', APP_TD ),
    'not_found' => __( 'No Listing Local Places found', APP_TD ),
    'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No Listing Local Places found in trash', APP_TD),
    'add_or_remove_items' => __( 'Add or Remove Listing Local Places', APP_TD ),
        'menu_name'         => __( 'Local Places', APP_TD ),
    );

    $args = array(
        'labels'            => $labels,
        'public'      => true, 

        'show_ui'           => true,
        'show_admin_column' => true, 

    'show_in_nav_menus' => true,
    'show_tagcloud' => false,
        'hierarchical'      => true, 

        'query_var'         => true,
        'rewrite'           => array( 'slug' => $va_options->listing_permalink . '/' . 'local' ),
    );
    register_taxonomy( VA_LISTING_LOCAL_PLACE, VA_LISTING_PTYPE, $args );
} 

add_action( 'init', 'add_custom_taxonomies', 0 );

This allows me to place posts within different locations… for example, http://www.domain.com/local/new-york/ or http://www.domain.com/local/florida/

I’m using a homepage widget to make featured or other posts appear. What I’d like to do is filter them by the location. So if someone selects “new york” with a drop down, then only posts in new york will appear.

I was using the

<?php if ( get_term( 'new-york', 'local', $listings->the_post() ) ) : ?>
post code here
<?php endif; ?>

but the posts in new york weren’t appearing correctly. Am I using the wrong php function?

thank you