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RACISM

5/13 Deadliest Disease in America

I in 11 Blacks in correction

Dangers of Not Speaking About Race

From Crack to Christ ~ a memoir

Prison Reform

Report: LI segregation unchecked

Local and county government agencies responsible for

combating discrimination are doing little or nothing to break patterns that

have made Long Island the third most segregated suburb in the nation, according

to a study by Erase Racism, a Long Island advocacy group.

Government fair housing agencies fail to investigate discrimination

complaints, local governments cling to zoning practices that perpetuate

segregation, and real estate agencies that steer black and Latino renters and

home buyers away from predominantly white neighborhoods face little risk of

prosecution, the report said.

Calls to the Long Island Board of Realtors were not returned.

"Yes, housing discrimination is very real," said Nassau County Executive

Thomas Suozzi. "This is a good example of where you have lots of good laws

passed at the national, state and local level and there has been no effective

coordination of resources to enforce the existing laws."

Elaine Gross, president of the advocacy group that did the study, said

county human rights commissions in Nassau and Suffolk leave it to the state to

investigate fair housing complaints, which often go unresolved.

The study said although local governments seeking federal Housing and Urban

Development funds must file "analysis of impediment" plans for overcoming

discriminatory housing patterns, few governments offered meaningful proposals.

In one example, the study noted Huntington Town, which it said has been

cited by HUD for exclusionary zoning practices, although its most recent

analysis of impediment report offered no action to address neighborhood

segregation.

Just 15 percent of 2.75 million Long Islanders live in communities where

both blacks and whites each make up more than 15 percent of the population,

according to a 2001 report by the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban

and Regional Research, at the State University at Albany. The other 2.3 million

are in communities that are predominantly white or black.

The Erase Racism report, which is based on a survey of government and

private data, said racial steering continues to keep neighborhoods segregated,

citing a survey in which 85 white testers and 79 African-American or Hispanic

testers asked real estate agents about the availability of housing.

White applicants were told an apartment was available 93 percent of the

time, compared to 53 percent of the time for African-American or Latino

applicants, according to the report.

Among the personal stories cited in the report was one of Deborah Post, a

black Touro Law Center professor, who was shown six homes in largely black and

Latino Huntington Station, when she had asked to see homes in predominantly

white Smithtown.

These findings were part of a 2004 survey conducted by the Association of

Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, one of the organizations

whose records were cited in the Erase Racism report.

Testing by the Long Island Housing Services, a fair housing group, in

Oyster Bay, North Hempstead and Smithtown last year, also cited in the Erase

Racism report, showed similar results.

"The statistics and our research show this is pervasive across Long

Island," said Cathryn Harris, the report's author. "Long Island is the third

most segregated [suburb] in the United States" behind suburban Newark, N.J.,

and Cleveland.

A spokesman for Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said local governments

are handcuffed by laws that place enforcement responsibility in the hands of

state government.

War is always a defeat for humanity.
                                            ~Pope John Paul II