Epstein asks how to expedite housing discrimination cases

Thank you, Chair Hanif.

I appreciate that.

I'm sorry that I can't stay long, but thank you for taking the time.

Can I just talk about housing discrimination issues?

Sounds like what we're hearing is someone calls a complaint, whether they're calling Mayor's Office of People with Disabilities or going directly to CCEHR.

A year later, a lot of these cases are not being resolved.

And obviously someone who cares deeply about making sure people who have housing issues can get those resolved.

I'm wondering how we get that system expedited.

What are we doing to help folks?

You know, this is truly a crisis for people, whether it's source of income discrimination.

And if you don't get that resolved within a month, that apartment's gone.

If we're talking about other, you know, as the chair was talking about, accessibility issues, a year is a very long time for someone to sit and wait and suffer.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Epstein.

That's actually really great, and I'm really honored to supervise our Project Equal Access team and our interventionists.

I will say at the point of contact with individuals, whether they're walking into our offices, being referred by other sibling agencies, or calling our live hotline,

we are flagging those matters as urgent matters and routing them for pre-complaint intervention.

And those are being handled immediately, whether it's lawful source of income or reasonable accommodations related to disabilities, which are the two areas I would say our interventionists are extremely.

Deaf debt.

We're able to secure housing quickly for individuals.

And when we are not, we are quickly filing those complaints, leveraging the expertise really of our interventionists in collecting evidence even before a complaint is filed.

And so any situation where we believe we can get the accommodation that that household needs can be anywhere from a physical modification, like the installation of a ramp, right, which we know can take time.

Permits may be needed.

Landmarking may need to be consulted.

But generally, we are able to achieve those very quickly.