ALBANY — The state agency charged with investigating housing discrimination, including the actions of landlords and real estate agents, has lost some complaints, failed to investigate others and generally, ” often failed to do its job,” according to an audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The state Division of Human Rights’ audit says some complaints were filed at an office called “Twilight Zone.” The firm retained files deemed defective or requiring more information, but were not investigated further.

The Division of Human Rights is the agency responsible for enforcing the state’s laws against housing discrimination. It also investigates cases referred by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development involving public housing and cases referred by nonprofit agencies that provide housing to low-income residents.

“New Yorkers facing housing discrimination are told they can report it to the state Division of Human Rights and it will be investigated, but the agency has often failed to do his job,” DiNapoli said. “He lost some cases due to his negligence and failed to properly or promptly investigate others.”

“Tenants whose complaints were mishandled may have been subjected to continued discrimination or forced to move,” according to the state comptroller.

Some of the cases cited in the audit were the types of discrimination found in Newsday’s 2019 “Divided Long Island” investigation. The articles found evidence of widespread separate and unequal treatment of racial minority buyers and renters on Long Island.

Auditors conducted a spot check of cases between April 2019 and October 2023 and found 2,263 complaints of discrimination. Of these, 1,095 were based in New York. Suffolk County had the fourth most discrimination complaints with 130 and Nassau was sixth with 116 complaints.

The Human Rights Division was unable to account for 68% of complaints received during this period. After being told by auditors, she still couldn’t account for half of it, the audit says. The complaints were lost, unaddressed or mislabeled, according to auditors. who blamed the division’s “complicated and poorly managed admissions system.”

The agency told auditors during the August review that the problems revealed by the audit were “unacceptable” and that improvements to their system had been underway for months.

“DHR did not wait for the release of today’s report to take decisive action to resolve and rectify these issues,” the agency said in a written statement. Denise Miranda, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new acting commissioner, is making “wide-ranging and transformative changes, not only within the Housing Investigations Unit, but across the agency.”

“It is encouraging to see that the agency is taking steps to address the issues raised by this audit,” DiNapoli said Thursday.

The agency also created an “internal audit unit” to modernize, expand and respond quickly to complaints.

“That explains a lot. I’m not surprised,” said Ian Wilder, executive director of Long Island Housing Services, a nonprofit that advocates for fair housing. “We have had problems with cases moving forward.”

But Wilder notes that much of the problem could be due to lack of staffing and funding.

“I don’t want to excuse it, but my question is how much of this is bad policy and how much of this is underfunding,” Wilder said. “We can’t do all this without people. »

But he said he has already seen a greater financial commitment to eliminating housing discrimination.

The agency’s Housing Investigation Unit investigates, prosecutes, and adjudicates cases of housing discrimination by sellers, landlords, landlords, brokers, and real estate agents. Discrimination includes refusing to sell or rent apartments and houses to people based on their age, race, income, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status and their disability.

In a spot check of 175 complaints, auditors said authorities failed to investigate or notify the person accused of discrimination within 30 days in 47 percent of cases, as required the law. In one case, authorities took almost two years to file charges against a person accused of discrimination.

The audit also cites an unidentified investigator who said the Division of Human Rights directed staff to prioritize cases involving federally subsidized housing “because of federal reimbursement,” the audit said. comptroller’s office.

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering government, politics and state issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.