The Need for Stronger Federal Enforcement of Fair Housing Is Evident in Three-Year Newsday Investigation Revealing Widespread Housing Discrimination on Long Island
ERASE Racism Report "Civil Rights Rollback" Reveals HUD Actions to Undermine Fair Housing
Syosset, NY – November 20, 2019 – Elaine Gross, President of ERASE Racism, called today on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to stop rolling back federal fair housing rules and regulations. The need for stronger federal enforcement of fair housing is evident from "Long Island Divided," the landmark Newsday report published on November 17 and 18 revealing widespread housing discrimination on Long Island.
The federal government is rolling back its commitment to fair housing, as ERASE Racism underscored in its report, issued in October, "Civil Rights Rollback: U.S. Government Actions to Reduce Civil Rights in Housing and Public Education." A snapshot of the report's sobering findings, as they relate to housing, reveals the following: "The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has acted deliberately to gut critical components of the enforcement infrastructure for the Fair Housing Act of 1968. It has done so in several key ways, among others: suspending the policies, procedures, and tools instituted to effectively improve municipal planning efforts to further fair housing; and, proposing to nullify the Fair Housing Act's Discriminatory Effects Standard, also known as Disparate Impact, by shifting the burden of proof onto the plaintiff at every step of a Disparate Impact discrimination claim."
The proposed HUD rule on Disparate Impact [Docket No. FR-6111-P-02] would make enforcing the Fair Housing Act much more difficult. It would eviscerate housing discrimination lawsuits that challenge policies that result in discrimination or perpetuate racial segregation even if discrimination is not the policy's stated intent.
The proposed rule has just undergone a 60-day comment period, ending on October 18, which generated more than 45,750 comments nationwide. ERASE Racism's official comment on the proposed rule is available here, and an op-ed by Elaine Gross on the topic published by Newsday can be found here.
"HUD's mission is 'to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all,'" said Elaine Gross, President of ERASE Racism. "Its current civil rights rollbacks are inconsistent with and undermining that mission."
On Long Island, housing discrimination has been so overt that in recent years ERASE Racism has obtained successful settlements in lawsuits where white people were shown apartments and encouraged to apply and black people were not and, thereby, denied housing. One case in Mineola – ERASE Racism, et al. v. LLR Realty LLC, et al. – was settled in 2014. The other in Commack – ERASE Racism, Inc., et al. v. Empire Management America, Corp., et al. – was settled in 2016. Both cases were the result of the same investigative technique used in the Newsday investigation: paired testing conducted in consultation with the Fair Housing Justice Center.
Additional information on ERASE Racism is available at www.eraseracismny.org. To speak with Elaine Gross, contact Henry Miller at 917-921-8034 or hmiller@highimpactpartnering.com.
ERASE Racism is a regional civil rights organization based on Long Island that exposes and addresses the devastating impact of historical and ongoing structural racism, particularly in public school education and housing. It does so through research, policy advocacy, legal action, and educating and mobilizing the public – driving policy change at local, regional and statewide levels and through national coalitions. It has been recognized locally and nationally for its cutting-edge work.