A test for Nassau, Suffolk on fair housing

Good things are happening in New York on the fair housing front. Laws have been passed and steps are being taken by many levels of government and the real estate industry to root out the kind of discriminatory treatment of homebuyers uncovered in Newsday’s Long Island Divided series.

But the linchpin of fair housing enforcement is undercover testing, and the record on that front is more mixed. Both the state and federal governments have increased or are proposing to hike funding for testing programs, but Nassau and Suffolk counties have not. They need to step up to the funding plate.

Undercover testing is expensive. That’s true whether it’s the kind of paired testing used by Newsday in its "Long Island Divided" series in which, for example, a white tester and Black tester with roughly similar financial backgrounds and looking for the same kind of house were sent to the same real estate agent. Another way of identifying disparate treatment is "sandwich" testing, in which a white tester is followed by a Black tester who’s followed by another white tester, which sometimes provides stronger evidence of discrimination. Fair housing experts say 25 tests of apartment rentals can cost around $50,000; tests of homebuying are even pricier.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has proposed giving six fair housing testing groups statewide a total of $250,000; that won’t go far. Attorney General Letitia James announced considerably heftier grants of about $660,000 for each of the fair housing groups, but the money is only for two years. Congress recently increased federal Department of Housing and Urban Development grants to each of the state groups from $300,000 to $360,000 per year, a welcome improvement. The most promising commitment is in legislation passed by the State Senate and awaiting Assembly approval, which would use increases in brokers’ and agents’ fees to raise an estimated $2.2 million per year for testing.

Both Nassau and Suffolk have taken good actions recently to combat discrimination in homebuying by hiring extra investigators to probe complaints. But finding ways to do more testing is needed as well. And this funding would be for tests on Long Island only — state and federal money is spread around New York — so it would have a more direct local impact.

The results of such testing can be striking, and alarming. In Newsday’s investigation, paired testing found evidence that 49% of Black homebuyers, 39% of Latino homebuyers and 19% of Asian homebuyers received disparate treatment. Officials from Nassau and Suffolk say they want to fund testing programs but cite difficult financial times in making that happen. But given their lack of progress against housing discrimination in years past, even modest funding would be more than a welcome symbolic gesture; it also could finance a significant amount of testing.

The effort to end housing discrimination requires that everyone join the fight. Nassau and Suffolk must meet the test.

— The editorial board