Posted on June 7, 2005

Group Ids 5 Brokers Accused of Race Bias

Allan Drury, Journal News (Westchester), June 7

A nonprofit agency surprised five real estate rental agencies yesterday by accusing them of discriminating against black and Hispanic people who posed as apartment hunters.

Westchester Residential Opportunities Inc. said it turned the names of the five over to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD has an agreement to refer such complaints to the state Division of Human Rights, said Adam Glantz, a spokesman for HUD in New York City.

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Real estate agents did not show minorities as many units as they showed the white testers, sought to steer minorities to neighborhoods with large minority populations and lied to the minorities about the availability of units, Westchester Residential alleged in its report.

In one instance, an agent told a black tester that there were no units available for showing, even though there was a white tester who had just been shown four units standing nearby, the organization said.

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