SUFFOLK CLOSEUP
By Karl Grossman
At a public hearing of the county’s Fair Housing Task Force this month on what government has done—and likely will do—in the wake of the Newsday expose of widespread racial “steering” in real estate sales in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, a state senator from Suffolk described his immediate action.
“I asked what is the law?” said Senator James Gaughran from Northport, who is an attorney. He said he was “shocked” to find that “violating” New York State’s Human Rights Law was “not a reason” for the state’s Secretary of State to “revoke a salesperson’s or real estate broker’s license.” So he promptly went to work on a bill to allow the Secretary of State “to revoke or suspend” the license of “any real estate salesperson or real estate broker found to be steering,” and also impose a fine.
His bill passed the Senate 59-to-1 (the only dissenting vote that of Senator Andrew Lanza of Staten Island). The sponsor of the bill in the State Assembly, where it passed unanimously, was Kimberly Jean-Pierre from Wheatley Heights.
It was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo in August of last year. Said Mr. Cuomo: “We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind in New York and the sheer scope and breadth of the unscrupulous and discriminatory real estate practices uncovered on Long Island is repugnant to who we are. While the federal government is focused on gutting fair housing regulations that have helped so many Americans, we are vastly expanding the state’s ability to crack down on unethical real estate agents and protect hard-working New Yorkers looking for a community to call home.”
Beyond Newsday’s investigative reporting, three Senate committees—on Investigation and Government Operations (of which Mr. Gaughran is a member); on Housing, Construction and Community Development; and on Consumer Protection—conducted a joint investigation.
These included hearings for which subpoenas were issued to real estate personnel to force their testimony and also, said the 95-page report issued by the committees, “compelling their disclosure of corporate policies, training materials and staff manuals concerning compliance with the federal Fair Housing Act and any similar state or local laws.”
Mr. Gaughran, a former Suffolk County legislator, spoke about the report, titled “Final Investigative Report Fair Housing and Discrimination on Long Island,” and the 11 bills growing out of the state probe. The bills, passed by the Senate, are now heading to the Assembly.
One of the bills requires the New York State Attorney General to regularly do the kind of testing Newsday did—sending testers into real estate offices to probe for discrimination. The newspaper, over three years, used testers in areas throughout Suffolk and Nassau Counties and found that many real estate agents directed minority potential homebuyers to neighborhoods based on their race. Some 49% of black testers and 39% of Latino testers were subjected to this, Newsday reported. That’s to a large degree why there what are called “ghettoes” on Long Island where minorities are concentrated, and thus Long Island being considered among the “most segregated” areas in the United States. Newsday’s series was headed “Long Island Divided.”
The Senate committees’ report states: “Formalized discrimination in residential real estate sales has a long history in the United States, becoming more pronounced as Black Americans migrated to northern states during the early 1900s.” It quoted from a “Code of Ethics” of the National Association of Real Estate Boards adopted in 1924 that stated, “A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood…members of any race…whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.”
The law providing for the revocation or suspension of licenses to sell real estate can be a key to challenging a discriminatory practice—as long as there is regular testing so evidence can be brought against the offending real estate people. And, among the 11 bills is a measure raising fees for state licenses to sell real estate with that extra money to be used to fund fair-housing testing. Other bills requires real estate agents to take additional hours of anti-bias training for license renewal and would allow the state Division of Human Rights to mete out compensatory and punitive damage awards to victims of bias in real estate sales.
Suffolk Legislator Sam Gonzalez of Brentwood, chair of the county’s Fair Housing Task Force, who presided at the public hearing, said it will soon be making recommendations focusing specifically on Suffolk County.
Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.