Undercover Testers Will Fight Housing Discrimination: Cuomo

LONG ISLAND, NY — New York State will team up with nonprofit organizations and use undercover testers across the state to shine a light on housing discrimination, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.

The program will be administered by New York State Homes and Community Renewal; trained fair housing "testers" will act as potential renters or home seekers to uncover unlawful discriminatory treatment by sellers, brokers, and landlords. HCR has accepted bids and is finalizing contracts with six nonprofit organizations to conduct testing on Long Island and in New York City, Westchester County, and in central and western New York, Cuomo said.

New regulations for real estate appraisers to help combat housing discrimination will take effect on March 17, requiring licensed and certified appraisers to receive training on fair housing and fair lending as part of their continuing education requirements, Cuomo said.

"Every New Yorker has the right to live in the community of their choice without fear of discriminatory treatment," Cuomo said.

In his State of the State message in January, Cuomo unveiled reforms he said were designed to bridge the racial divide in homeownership and remove barriers to wealth-building. The proposal expanded the reach of HCR's State of New York Mortgage Agency and "gives teeth to the fight against redlining" by allowing more community-based lenders to offer SONYMA loans in low-income communities, increasing down payment assistance for borrowers in underserved areas of the state to $7,500 from $3,000, and granting SONYMA flexibility to make mortgage modifications in times of crisis so borrowers can remain in their homes, Cuomo said.

In addition, SONYMA's Give Us Credit program, which examines traditional measures of credit history and creditworthiness to enable more borrowers to qualify for mortgages, was also expanded.

Long Island has long been considered one of the most racially segregated suburbs in the nation, and a report released in January by the State Senate reviewed evidence of discrimination in real estate practices.

The committee tasked with creating the final Fair Housing and Discrimination on Long Island 97-page report "collected information from Newsday's Long Island Divided investigative series, witness testimony, subpoenaed documents, policy meetings, and committee research."

The report was partially sparked by Newsday's Long Island Divided three-year investigative series that used undercover home buyers to find what the report described "evidence of widespread separate and unequal treatment of minority potential homebuyers and minority communities on Long Island."

The State Senate report summarized the findings: "The investigation's findings—the product of paired testing over 90 real estate agents, recording over 200 hours of interactions, and analyzing 5,700 home listings — revealed widespread discriminatory treatment of racial minority testers: 49% of the time against Blacks testers, 39% against Hispanic testers, and 19% against Asian testers."

The investigation pointed out that Long Island has 291 communities but the vast majority of its black residents live in just 11 of those.

The committee offered a multi-step recommendation to address the problems.

With additional reporting by Jacqueline Sweet.