Fair Housing  Conference sponsored by NYSDHR & NYCCHR on April 5, 2023 from 10am – 4pm at New Location: National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green New York, NY 10004. Register: bit.ly/NYFairHousing2023 
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Know Your Rights: Fair Housing on Long Island. Register: https://bit.ly/3DTXZPx

Join the NYS Division of Human Rights, the NYS Office for Prevention of Domestic Violence, Long Island Housing Services, and the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless for webinar on fair housing protections for survivors of domestic violence, sex discrimination, and more. The New York State Human Rights Law protects your right to live in the neighborhood you choose, free from discrimination.

Project Independence and YOU! – January 20, 2023 Join Rebecca Miller, Otto Lohse, and Kristina Lew of North Hempstead’s Project Independence as they talk with Ian S. Wilder, Esq, Executive Director, Long Island Housing Services, Inc. to discuss Long Island Housing Services, Inc. serves local residents needs with housing insecurity including tenants’ rights, foreclosure prevention, and fair housing

This FREE training will empower individuals to recognize fair housing violations. This training will also teach you how to document and report allegations of housing discrimination. This Fair Housing training will also cover a brief discussion on familial status discrimination, sex discrimination (harassment and gender), disability discrimination, COVID-19 as it relates to disability discrimination in housing, and other prohibited basis. Register in advance: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2n68vZyrQBizBrXpyUS1JA (more…)

Hello all,

I was asked to speak in front of the Suffolk County Legislature‘s Economic Development, Planning, and Housing Committee on November 16, 2022 for Long Island Housing Services.

I learned a lot.

I was asked to speak about the problem with local preferences in housing. I prepared to talk about that topic, and our relationship with Suffolk County.

Naive me didn’t bother to think about what I had seen happen on C-Span when a witness testifies in front of a legislative committee. To see how I handled the barrage of questions on various housing issues from a variety of ideological viewpoints go here: https://livestream.com/scnylegislature/events/10063725/videos/233875772

What is a Local Preference?

From the article that I  recently wrote for Touro Law Review on 20 Ways to Fight Housing Discrimination:

HUD allows local housing authorities to give preferences to certain classes of persons, and these preferences might seem neutral or socially positive on their face. The problem is that if these preferences are based on already existing residency in a municipality, and that municipality is less diverse than the surrounding area, then these preferences serve to reinforce patterns of segregation. Therefore, it is left to the municipality to certify that their use of HUD funds do not discriminate. Self-certification by municipalities has failed to enforce the law. Thus, the simplest solution is to ban local preferences as a method of determining who receives affordable housing from the limited stock available. It is a much better path than doing the constant statistical analysis of local preferences to ensure they do not discriminate against any protected class. Please contact your town or village officials to ask them to ban all local preferences because they can often act to reinforce segregation. [footnotes omitted]

Fair Housing On Long Island

Go to this website for the video: https://tourolawreviewblog.wpcomstaging.com/2022/11/15/podcast-fair-housing-on-long-island-where-we-are-since-newsdays-long-island-divided-investigation/ (more…)