NYC looks to Increase Testing for Housing Discrimination

In a city with a population of more than 8 million and a pricey and perpetually tight housing market, there are just eight people charged with sussing out systemic discrimination in the housing industry. Of these eight employees at the city Commission on Human Rights who are responsible for running tests to make sure landlords are not violating the city’s human rights law, only six work part-time.

Federal and state statutes bar landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants based on race, religion, disability, age or sexual orientation—but those laws don’t protect residents based on how they earn their income. Refusing to accept vouchers or subsidies from potential tenants or homeowners is prohibited under the city’s Human Rights Law, but not at the state or federal level. Other protected classes unique to the city include citizenship status, lawful occupation and gender identity or expression.

City officials, worried that the minimal staff has resulted in inadequate enforcement, have started discussing how to fix the problem. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vowed to ease housing and rent burdens during their respective State of the City addresses—the mayor by bolstering the affordable housing stock, and the speaker by providing legal assistance to poor residents on housing matters, as well as empowering the human rights commission and tasking it with spot testing for discrimination.

Advocates say that the efforts will only succeed if the commission has an effective testing program capable of taking on large management companies and realtors engaging in discrimination, which could deter other potential offenders.

For example, at a March 3 City Council hearing, Legal Aid staff attorney Sebastian Riccardi questioned whether an initiative to transition families out of homeless shelters was being undercut by the lack of enforcement.

“[The city] issued over 1,500 vouchers to help families find permanent housing, but only 400 of them have resulted in actual signed leases,” Riccardi said. “This is clearly an example of discrimination at work in the market.”

Other than individuals hiring attorneys or approaching the city commission, uncovering discrimination against those protected solely under the city law falls to the commission, as well as the state Attorney General’s office—which says it handles such complaints through its Civil Rights Bureau—and nonprofit and legal advocacy groups.

Federal and state agencies also investigate potential anti-discrimination violations and enforce rules, advocates say. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also distributes $325,000 annually to nonprofits, although the Fair Housing Justice Center is the only recipient in the city with a testing program, according to its executive director, Fred Freiberg. HUD officials said the department’s dollars may only be used to fight violations of federal law.

City Councilman Brad Lander has also taken notice, recently holding a hearing to discuss the matter. Lander said Craigslist housing ads show many landlords are so unconcerned with penalties that they openly state that Section 8 vouchers are not accepted. He said tenants with the subsidies are unlikely to seek such housing and then report to the commission, which illustrates the need to build up the testing program.

“If it’s our law, we should take it seriously and be serious about enforcing it,” Lander said. “We have the NYPD enforce our laws. We don’t say, ‘We just kind of rely on the neighborhood watch to get a grant to go enforce our law.’ ”

Since 1991, the commission’s staff size has been reduced to 66, down from 241, according Legal Services NYC’s testimony before the Council. The agency’s budget shrunk 80 percent during that period, Mark-Viverito said. And a city comptroller audit suggests that its effectiveness has taken a hit, with the commission failing to address more than half of the 593 cases it received within a one-year period.

The speaker pledged to add $5 million to the commission’s budget, which she said would be enough to double number of attorneys and human rights specialists. Amid talk of reviving the commission, Lander introduced a bill that would require it to establish a housing discrimination testing program and compile a report by June 2016 with statistics on its activity.

Carmelyn Malalis, who took over as the agency’s commissioner in February, said she was pleased that the Council viewed it as a priority. She said, however, she would like more time to review and improve the commission’s testing program—possibly by collaborating with the city’s corporation counsel or private organizations—before submitting statistics.

Malalis said the commission’s eight testers identify possible Human Rights Law violations in employment and housing. The testers were involved in all 125 cases that resulted in a commission-initiated complaint in 2014, which she said showed the “effectiveness of the testing program.”

“I am concerned that placing additional obligations on the commission with short timelines, such as those included in the proposed legislation, may actually be counterproductive to making the commission more effective,” Malalis said at the hearing.

Freiberg said the Fair Housing Justice Center would only be able to collaborate with the commission on testing if the city is funding it. Lander pointed to the speaker’s pledge to increase the commission’s funding as evidence there was political will to pass his bill and improve the agency. He also said legislators identified the commission as a priority in a policy survey administered last year.

Expectations are high for the de Blasio administration to act, given its emphasis on ending inequality in the city, said Nicole Salk, a senior staff attorney in South Brooklyn Legal Services’ workers rights and benefits unit.

“Folks voted de Blasio into office primarily around the issue of the tale of two cities,” Salk said. “If you can’t buy into a co-op in a neighborhood where you’re actually able to get some equity, it means that certain com-munities are not able to develop wealth.”