The NYC agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws has been plagued by staff shortages and is, in some instances, prematurely closing cases without fully investigating allegations.
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2023.The New York City agency responsible for enforcing local anti-discrimination laws has been beset by staff attrition and is, in some instances, prematurely closing cases without fully investigating allegations, leaving in question the effectiveness of the myriad laws that advocates have said would be the strongest in the country if they were fully enforced.
The cause of the disruption, according to current and former workers, is a severe staffing shortage that was aggravated by the mayor’s decision to eliminate another 20 positions from the agency earlier this year. The unit has been especially hindered by the staffing shortage, and several former agency staffers accused the commission’s leadership of not prioritizing housing discrimination cases.
Stephanie Rudolph, an attorney who led CCHR’s source-of-income discrimination unit until 2020, criticized city officials for not providing additional funding for the agency sooner, and urged the commission to stick by its plan to dedicate all the new positions to combating voucher discrimination. Among the comptroller’s list of indicators for what it called a “success rate” was the agency’s proficiency in closing cases, giving the impression that the commission continues to fully investigate the majority of the cases it receives. The comptroller’s report also projected that the agency’s success rate would reach 100% during the last fiscal year.
Others described an urgency within the commission to close out cases before the end of the year, even if investigations were moving at a rapid pace. Former staff speculated the pressure was to improve performance data used in the mayor's biannual management report — figures that were ultimately used in the Comptroller's assessment
While an administrative closure by the human rights commission still allows someone to bring their case to state or federal court, those venues can be more difficult to navigate without an attorney. But agency data shows the commission referred just four cases to OATH during the fiscal year ending in 2022. That’s down from 13 in the previous year, and 20 in the fiscal year ending in 2020.
But complaints she lodged with the human rights commission, which were reviewed by Gothamist, show the reality was far different. In her correspondence with the agency, Newton alleged that the broker gave her the wrong address for an apartment viewing, and explicitly told her that the landlords he worked with did not accept her voucher.In an email to the commission, Newton expressed interest in securing one of the apartment listings with the agency’s help.
At the time, wait times to receive a call back from an agency attorney ranged between four to six months, according to one former staffer and housing advocates.Newton believes that the staff shortage within the commission's source-of-income unit at the time prevented her case from being meaningfully investigated, and that the agency is not acting as a deterrent to those who violate the city’s anti-discrimination laws.
Some staffers who left the agency have also questioned whether commission leadership has adequately prioritized housing complaints compared to other areas of the agency's remit, such as employment discrimination, based on the amount of damages and penalties the commission seeks.
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