April 2014 "Newsday: Group files federal housing discrimination complaint against Nassau"
Newsday: Group files federal housing discrimination complaint against Nassau
Originally published: April 29, 2014 1:26 AM
Updated: April 29, 2014 1:45 AM
By DARRAN SIMON darran.simon@newsday.com
An advocacy group has filed a complaint with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development accusing Nassau County of violating fair-housing laws and reinforcing segregated living conditions.
The civil-rights group, ERASE Racism, claims the county's Office of Community Development has heavily funded subsidized family units in mostly black areas and overwhelmingly awarded money for senior projects in mostly white communities. It claims some of the family housing should also be built in mostly white communities and some senior housing in mostly black neighborhoods.
The county has also funded projects in communities with restrictive zoning and housing laws that fail to promote integration, the complaint alleges.
"African Americans are still being denied housing choice and, consequently, equal access to the same opportunities that white residents of Nassau County enjoy," group president Elaine Gross said in a news release that noted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed 50 years ago.
A spokesman for County Executive Ed Mangano could not be reached late Monday for a response.
According to a 2010 census, 11.1 percent of Nassau's 1.3 million residents were black. But many municipalities have disproportionate white or black populations, according to the group, whose name is an acronym for Education, Research, Advocacy, Support to Eliminate Racism.
The Syosset-based group filed the complaint Monday.
The county consortium of villages, cities and towns agree to comply with civil-rights obligations, such as the Civil Rights Act, to receive the federal funds from the county's office of community development. The county also is bound by those obligations.
In fiscal year 2014, the county has received $15.7 million in urban development grants.
According to the complaint, those federal dollars have funded more than half of about 3,500 family units in communities with large black populations such as Freeport, citing a 2008 county study.
In contrast, funding has paid for 62 percent of 7,900 senior units in predominantly white communities such as Port Washington.
The complaint alleges the county has "failed or refused to enforce the civil rights obligations" of the consortium communities and enabled them to engage in "discriminatory" zoning practices.
For instance, several towns, including Bayville, have zoning ordinances that restrict multifamily housing, which advocates say is generally more affordable to minority residents.
Another town, Oyster Bay, which received more than $5 million from the county, amended its housing code in 1993 and 2004 to give local residents preferences for affordable housing, the complaint says.
African Americans represent just 2.3 percent of Oyster Bay's population, according to 2010 census figures.
Gross said school district lines mirror residential segregation in Long Island.
"By denying African American access to those communities through those affordable housing programs, you are also denying them access to quality public schools," she said in an interview Monday.
Last week, a federal judge ordered Garden City to remedy discriminatory housing policies after a decade of litigation. The judge, Arthur D. Spatt, ruled in December that Garden City violated the federal Fair Housing Act and other civil-rights statutes when it enacted a zoning ordinance in 2004 in response to public pressure to keep multifamily housing out of the overwhelmingly white village.
The group's complaint alleges that the county has not audited or withheld federal funding from communities that fail to comply with civil-rights requirements.
Gross said the outcomes of HUD fair-housing complaints in other parts of the country bode well for its Nassau claim.
"We are confident that a shining light on Nassau County will lead to increased housing choices for people of color," she said in the news release.
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