Fair Chance Act Challenges and Success

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My name is Sandy Nurse and I serve as chair of the Committee on Civil and Human Rights. I would like to start by thanking everyone who is joining us today and thank you to the committee staff who have worked hard to put this hearing together. Today we are hearing about the Fair Chance Act and its challenges and successes since enactment. The Fair Chance Act, first passed in 2015 and later expanded in 2021, prohibits most employers from asking about an applicant's criminal record before making a job offer or from including such inquiries in a job advertisement. It also protects employees from being treated less well than other employees due to a previous arrest or conviction. Local Law 24 of 2024, which took effect in January 2025, created similar fair chance protections for housing. The Fair Chance in Housing Law prohibits landlords, real estate brokers, or their agents from discriminating against renters and buyers because of arrest records, convictions, or other criminal history.

But before we can really dive into the law's implementation, I think it is important to highlight why we passed this Bill in the first place. The United States incarcerates more human beings than any other nation on the face of this earth. One in three Americans carries a criminal record. The arrest rate for Black Americans is more than double that of white Americans. In Manhattan, the financial capital of the world, Black individuals are convicted of felonies at a rate 21 times higher than white individuals. Latinos are convicted 8.5 times more. These statistics represent individuals that do not reflect a difference in conduct amongst racial groups. They reflect a difference in treatment. At every single stage of the criminal justice system, marginalized people are squeezed harder. They have pre-trial detention more often. They face harsher charges and longer sentences for the same behavior. They are convicted at higher rates. And when people are innocent, they are more likely to accept a plea deal anyway because the system has very little protection for them. Some wait years to clear their names of wrongful convictions while the machinery of that system moves on without apology.

This is the reality in which the Fair Chance Act was built. 750,000 New York City residents carry a criminal conviction. Nearly a million of our neighbors, when they are released — in other words, have paid their debt to society — face closed doors at every turn. Employers will not hire them, landlords will not house them, and a society that says you have served your time and then makes certain your time never truly ends. 93% of formerly incarcerated individuals want to work and seek employment. They are ready, able, and willing. And yet six out of 10 cannot find work, especially during that critical window after release. The reality is we have built a system of invisible punishment that follows a person long after they leave prison.

More acutely in New York City, when a person cannot find housing, they are 10 times more likely to become homeless than someone without a record. Families are forced to choose between keeping their loved one under their roof and keeping that roof at all. And those who leave prison homeless are seven times more likely to violate their release terms, beginning a very terrible cycle. The Fair Chance Act in employment and the Fair Chance in Housing Law passed in 2024 are not charity. They are the bare minimum of what justice requires. These laws allow nearly a million of our neighbors to formally end the period of punishment and move on with their lives. And of course, a law means nothing if it is not enforced with the full backing of the City's power, including resources and services. Today we will examine whether these protections are reaching the people that they were written for, what the state of enforcement and investment looks like, and if we are making gains on the fair chance for housing expansion. I look forward to hearing your testimony and getting into the details. I am going to pass it off to committee counsel to administer the oath.

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Good morning, Chair Nurse and committee staff. Thanks as well. I know it is a lot of effort behind the scenes that goes into these hearings and we appreciate the partnership with you. It is also fair housing month, so happy fair housing month. Nice to do this in April. My name is Joanne Kth Ward. I am deputy commissioner of policy and external affairs at the New York City Commission on Human Rights and I am joined by Hillary Scravani who is our director of policy and adjudications. The Commission on Human Rights is excited to speak about our ongoing commitment to advancing fair chance protections in employment and housing — amendments the commission has staunchly supported for decades and which are groundbreaking. I will speak about how the commission educates New Yorkers about their expanded rights and works with housing providers and employers so they know and comply with evolving obligations. There is more detail in the written testimony than what I am going to say this morning.

Since the passage of the Fair Chance Employment Protections in 2015, the commission has continued to develop new initiatives to address this pervasive type of discrimination. I will speak briefly about our dual mandate and then turn more specifically to the provisions of the law and what we have been doing to date. The law that we enforce, as we have discussed historically, is one of the strongest local civil rights laws in the nation and reflects a clear principle: all New Yorkers deserve to live, work, and thrive in our City free from discrimination. To this end, the New York City Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations across more than 25 protected categories. Really, since its inception, the commission has been responsible for preventing discrimination through education, outreach, and partnerships. And when violations are reported to us, we investigate, seek to settle cases, and prosecute violations in order to foster accountability and secure meaningful relief for New Yorkers.

Now, just turning to the protections in the fair chance amendments that are really a vital part of our mission to expand access to opportunity. These protections state that past interaction with the criminal legal system should not be a barrier to housing or to employment. They also recognize that background checks are not always reliable and provide New Yorkers the ability to respond when errors show up in their applications for housing or for employment. These protections have evolved over time. As the chair noted, in 2015, the Fair Chance Employment Act was passed, prohibiting most New York City employers from considering an applicant's criminal history until after a conditional offer of employment or from referencing criminal histories in job ads and applications, which we know had a chilling effect on just applying for jobs in the first place. The law allows for criminal history to be taken into account in limited circumstances, but it also guarantees that when this happens, job applicants receive an individualized assessment and requires that employers demonstrate a specific connection between a conviction and a position before an applicant can be turned away. In 2019, these protections were expanded to cover current employees and additional types of case dispositions. Together, these workplace protections ensure that qualified applicants are evaluated based on their skills and ability to perform a job rather than being automatically excluded.

This enhances access to employment and supports economic mobility, family stability, and successful re-entry.

Turning to housing, as we all know and as the chair also mentioned, stable housing is foundational to dignity, health, and economic security. Fair chance housing protections ensure that individuals do not face permanent exclusion from housing based on past legal system involvement or the existence of a criminal record. The Fair Chance Housing Act requires that New Yorkers be considered for housing based on current eligibility. It says that landlords and brokers cannot discuss criminal history in ads or applications. While the law does not strictly prohibit background checks, the Fair Chance Housing Act requires two important things. First, that if a housing provider does a criminal background check, it must be the last part of the application process. Second, that before a candidate can be turned away, the housing provider must conduct an individualized analysis and provide a reason to an applicant in writing. By promoting individualized review and transparent decision-making, these protections help create the conditions necessary for employment, stability, and community safety. And as noted by the chair, these protections also are in place to address long-standing racial injustice.

That is the law. Now I am going to talk a little bit about what we have been doing. I just want to start by noting the commission worked very closely with the Council and with advocates and other stakeholders on the passage of fair chance housing protections. We continue to collaborate with partners with experience in re-entry, some of whom are in this room and are part of the Fair Chance Housing Coalition, including the Fortune Society, the Osborne Association, Legal Aid, Community Service Society, and others. We also engaged an artist with the Department of Cultural Affairs to take a participatory approach to really meeting with community members who were impacted by the criminal legal system and bringing that to our education and outreach. I am happy to talk more about that in the Q&A. Our efforts were designed to ensure that outreach and education reflect lived experience.

One of the aims of the commission is to prevent discrimination before it occurs through outreach, technical assistance, and education. Through guidance, trainings, and speaking to workers, tenants, employers, housing providers, and CBOs across the five boroughs, we help New Yorkers understand their rights and responsibilities. Being proactive in the fair chance space is also very important because compliance depends on awareness of in-depth procedural requirements, the use of lawful screening practices — which sometimes are kind of a black box of information — and individualized review standards. By expanding awareness and promoting compliance on the front end, education and outreach make the protections of the law meaningful in everyday practice.

Ahead of the Fair Chance Housing Act's effective date, the agency worked with advocates, sibling agencies, and housing providers to develop comprehensive information and launch a "Break Down Barriers to Housing" campaign, ushering in awareness of the law. We also distributed resources at outreach events, ran digital social media and link kiosk ads, and placed posters in convenience stores across the City in multiple languages to drive individuals to information that we have created on our website. In fiscal year 2025, the commission also created an in-house training for our staff. We also have a free fair chance housing training for members of the public available by request to ensure that anyone who wants to know about the law and learn more about some of the details has the ability to do that. These protections are also included in our more frequently offered Human Rights Law 101 so that anyone talking to the commission and receiving a training is going to know that fair chance protections exist in New York City. We think that education and awareness really foster compliance, with the aim of reducing violations of the law, which is a lofty objective.

These efforts complement our enforcement. When the commission receives information suggesting potential violations of fair chance protections, the agency has the ability to launch investigations to determine whether employers or housing providers have engaged in discriminatory conduct and to enter settlements in those cases. During the first year of fair chance housing, the commission has prioritized outreach and education. As we look ahead, we anticipate that like in employment, fair chance housing enforcement will result in settlements, including agreements that involve training of housing providers and policy changes to prevent future discrimination.

So just in closing, fair chance protections embody a fundamental promise of the City Human Rights Law: that every New Yorker is treated fairly. Access to employment and housing creates the stability that strengthens families, supports re-entry, and advances safety for everyone. We remain committed to pairing vigorous enforcement with proactive education so these rights are meaningful in practice. We thank the committee and members of the Council for their partnership and look forward to continuing this work together. We welcome the opportunity to answer your questions.

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Thank you so much. And I want to recognize that CM Shaun Abreu has joined us. So we will start out with talking about the Fair Chance Act regarding employment. I have some questions around outreach, inquiries, and testing and then we will move into some other areas. For the Fair Chance Employment Act, CCHR had reported for the first two years that you conducted outreach to over 18,000 individuals, but you also provided technical assistance to just under 2,000 people. We were wondering what does the technical assistance entail?

So you are talking about now 2016 to

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2017,

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the first two years. Yeah. So I think technical assistance is not a term we use these days about the way that we engage with members of the public, but I can speak to that about my time since I have joined the commission. What we do in this space — for fair chance employment, we created a citywide campaign, "Criminal Record? You Can Work," that was across subway ads. We created a handbook in partnership with some of the advocates that are in this room so that people know what is permissible during the application process. We developed rules to guide employers and again job applicants on what the law looks like. We conducted many trainings in correctional facilities, with sibling agencies, with service providers, and with re-entry organizations so that individuals would know what their protections in this space are.

We get a lot of questions still about fair chance employment. On my team we monitor an inbox — questions from law firms, questions from individual New Yorkers that say, "Hey, this is my background. Someone asked me this question. Is this a violation of the law?" I think that is the kind of technical assistance that was being referred to: fielding questions from members of the public both on the service provider side, the employer side. HR would also ask a lot of questions. So those are the types of inquiries that on the policy team we deal with, but also in the law enforcement bureau. Not everyone wants to file a claim. Sometimes people are just seeking answers to their technical questions.

Okay. Thank you for that. And you mentioned in your testimony that you include fair chance information in your Human Rights Law 101 training. Can you explain how often that is offered and generally who takes those trainings?

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So on the second question, who takes those trainings? It is really a wide array of people doing the Human Rights Law 101. Today one of our colleagues is at Visions, which is a nonprofit serving people with disabilities, doing a Human Rights Law 101. We definitely do them for sibling agencies. We have regular trainings with DOH, for example, and regular trainings with HPD. We offer between 100 and 200 of those a year — and when I say we offer, I mean we are holding that training, not just that we are saying it is on offer. We have 100 to 200 of those a year, reaching several thousand New Yorkers each year. It can really run the gamut of employment agencies, service providers, and CBOs that are often requesting those trainings.

We also have a dedicated fair chance in employment training and a dedicated fair chance in housing training. So the Human Rights Law 101 is sort of a teaser training in that it covers everything under the Human Rights Law. Our goal is always to be engaging longer term so that folks are also taking the deeper dive trainings on topics like fair chance and disability protections.

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Were any trainings given as a corrective action for a party that was in violation of the Fair Chance Employment Act?

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So I would say almost all of our settlements in the fair chance employment space involve training on the human rights law. That is really larger. For most of our settlements, training is a component of what we order people to do. So in fair chance employment in particular, I think there are a couple of novel things we have done that are worth mentioning. Training is a basic one, and we do respondent trainings on the Fair Chance Employment Act as a standalone. We also require people obviously to fix their ads or applications that are violating the law. And I think if a company is based in New York but they have offices countrywide, that is something that can impact and have a ripple effect past New York City, which I think is really great.

We also can require and have required companies to share their model employment policies with us. I anticipate something very similar in the housing space, where we are looking at what your policies say on a wide range of topics including fair chance. And then the last thing I will say about the fair chance employment space is that also as part of our settlements, we have, depending on the employer, required folks to actually do job fairs and engage with re-entry organizations, again with the idea that we want to not just stop the facial violation. Obviously we want to do that, but really expand the pipeline of opportunity that employers are pulling from so that the demographics of who they are employing changes.

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It does not seem like there has been reporting on the number of trainings or technical assistance numbers since the pandemic. Are you all still tracking that?

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So again, the technical assistance number is not a number we have tracked in that way.

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Trainings, yeah, 100%. We have training numbers. I can talk to you about some of those. Yeah, it would be great, even if you want to list them here or if you want to also send them. Just how many individuals have received training or participated in workshops regarding fair chance for employment in each of the post-pandemic years. So I think that is FY22 through 25. If you are saying technical assistance is not a term you are using, that is fine.

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Just so that we can have that for our record. Yeah, and I can say the years I have

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with me right now are 23, 24 and 25. So

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I can say just for those years for fair chance employment, in fiscal year 24 we did about 30 of those trainings reaching 351 people. That one person is very important. In fiscal year 25 we did 33 trainings reaching 321 people. In fiscal year 26 to date, 46 of those trainings reaching about 500 people. You asked about human rights law 101, so I will just say those numbers as well. In fiscal year 24 we did 150 of those trainings reaching about 4,000 people. In 2025 we did 200 of those trainings reaching 7,000 people. And in fiscal year 26 to date we have done 99 of those trainings reaching about 6,000 people as well. When we add the fair chance specific training, do you want me to speak to that number? Yes, you could.

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So that only started in 2025. But as I mentioned, the human rights law 101 trainings that I just covered would introduce fair chance protections. The specific fair chance housing training was offered 16 times in 2025, reaching about 175 people. In fiscal year 26 we have almost doubled that number to date, doing 26 and reaching 350 people. And then I should also say, I think relevant to the fair chance housing space and reaching realtors and housing providers who are very important in the application market, we have developed with the Fordham Real Estate School a partnership where we offer a free training for real estate brokers where they get continuing education credit. We have trained about a thousand brokers in fiscal year 25 on, again, the suite of housing protections in the City human rights law. So it is source of...

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Income, it is disability, it is fair chance. But we think that is a really effective program because people are incentivized to want to do the training and it helps them keep their license.

Yeah, that is great. Thank you for that breakdown. I want to move into inquiries. Can you tell us what is the difference between phone calls and walk-ins reported in the mayor's management report? For FY25 there was approximately just over 20,000 reported, but then in CCHR's annual report it is a little bit lower, about 15,000 for FY25. So just wondering what the difference is here.

I am just trying to pull up the PMMR data. Part of that data is like when in time it is run. So I think we have opined on our case management system at a separate hearing. But if we run the data on a date and one of our staff people entered their inquiries after we run that data, the next report we run is going to have a different number. But I think the number of inquiries that we have been talking about for fiscal year 25 is like 15,500 or so. I do not have the walk-in versus phone call breakdown, or the other way we take inquiries, which is a web form, but I do not have that breakdown with me today.

Okay. And when someone calls the info line, who are they talking to — a human rights specialist or someone who does general intake?

Yeah. So our human rights specialists on our info line are the intake folks that are really taking down all of their information and doing kind of a first-run analysis of whether what they are saying states a claim if taken as true. And then if that is the case, we set up an appointment to meet with an attorney and that is how the process moves forward. I think we talked also previously about the opportunity to file complaints as one mechanism to resolving cases, but I think in the housing space we have seen the use of what we call pre-complaint interventions, which are — you know, we get the phone call, something has happened recent in time, the individual who calls wants a quick resolution if possible, and the potential respondent is open to that. We try to resolve matters like a viewing for an apartment in the source of income space, a reasonable accommodation in the disability space, without ever filing a complaint, because we know that can be a lengthy process. We do not have the number of claims to bear this out yet, but we anticipate that fair chance housing will also be a space where we are able to utilize pre-complaint interventions.

And are staff trained in how to identify what kind of discrimination may have occurred as part of determining the protected class or other basis for CCHR's jurisdiction when an inquiry happens?

Yeah. So meaning are they looking at the multiple potential claims that might show up? Yes, 100%. I think just looking at some of the data in anticipation of today, we see in the fair chance employment space some crossover with disability claims, some crossover with race claims, and we have seen in the small number of housing inquiries we have had also crossover with source of income, which I think is not a huge surprise. I do not know if that trend will continue, but we definitely are training and encouraging our staff to think about intersectionality and to recognize that people might come to us with a problem. We might uncover another problem while talking to that individual. It is part of the intake and investigation process to try and bear out if other potential claims exist.

And when that happens, in terms of additional claims or violations being identified, is that reconciled in your annual reporting data?

Yes. So that is why if you look at the claims numbers, it does not exactly match the number of complaints filed, because complaints can have a host of claims, sometimes related to each other, sometimes a little different. So a complaint can bear multiple claims.

If it seems like discrimination may have occurred, is that person always offered an intake appointment?

Yes. I think they are always offered an intake appointment. I know that we have in our system something called a no-show, which means that we have tried to reach someone, we have set an appointment and they are not able to make it, and we try to follow up with those people. But everyone who states a colorable claim is invited to further work with the commission. We are a right-to-file agency. So we take everyone who has a colorable claim, at least at the start.

Thank you for that. And if someone is offered that — I mean, we have spoken about the length of times — so for someone who does not want to wait the amount of time anticipated to get that intake appointment, do you refer them out to another legal service provider? What are the options that you are providing, and how are those referrals made?

Yeah. I think this is an ongoing work in progress because our goal is always to give a warm handoff, either to a legal service provider if we cannot help someone — which, you know, the numbers of inquiries are very high and the numbers of claims are much lower because there are many things that do not end up being human rights law violations — so we attempt to make a warm handoff where possible and where we know someone who is working in that space, one of the legal service provider organizations. Sometimes it is going to the state division, which has some parallel jurisdiction with us, and sometimes people are just looking for resources for understanding what their rights are and they do not even want to file a claim.

But yes, we are committed to lowering the amount of time it takes at every stage of the complaint process. So that is from when someone calls to when they meet with an attorney, and that is the amount of time it takes to resolve a claim. I think the commissioner has stated her objective to have cases resolved in one year or less and we want to be moving in that direction. That is how we are evaluating our current staffing to think about how we move the needle.

So for when CCHR is unable to identify a protected class, what happens to those folks? Do you also refer them out to these other organizations?

I think it will totally depend on the situation. If someone is contacting us and they are not in New York City, there are analogues to us in lots of places that they can contact — the State Division, or Westchester County Human Rights Commission, or another commission with similar jurisdiction. Sometimes folks contact us because they know we do source of income work, and they are having a voucher issue, but it is not a discrimination issue. It is like a shopping letter or something to do with their package. So those we really work hard to hand off directly to our colleagues at sibling agencies, because we know that navigating the multiple agency...

This is a nightmare. Yeah.

...can be challenging. So yeah, I think where we can help folks or where we see a direct resource, we provide that. I think the challenge can be that sometimes folks are experiencing something that is very unpleasant that does not rise to the level of a legal violation that we can help them with. So we try to explain that to the best of our ability. All of our attorneys and intake staff have lists of referral agencies and legal service providers that we can share if appropriate.

Okay. From 2016 to 2017, about 6% of inquiries with an identified protected class were for discrimination on the basis of arrest or conviction record. In recent years that number has varied from around 3% to as much as 15%. Do you think that these inquiries are most likely additional reports of fair chance employment discrimination that are just not being identified?

Can you just ask that again so I can fully understand the question?

That is a little bit of a wonky question. From 2016 to 2017, about 6% of inquiries with an identified protected class were for discrimination on the basis of arrest or conviction record. In recent years that number has varied from around 3% to as much as 15%. I am wondering if you would agree that there are most likely additional reports of fair chance employment discrimination that are not being identified.

I would not say they are not coming to us, but I think generally there is likely more discrimination happening than what we are seeing in our reports. When I look at the data on inquiries and claims, there is one standout year where we have a huge number of inquiries, which is FY22. I think we can anecdotally connect that to the fact that the law was changed to cover current employees and people anticipated they might have a claim with us. Every other year really hovers around the same amount of claims in this space, so 25 to 35. I think that just indicates that this is a persistent problem. I think there is always just a percentage of people who want to take the step of reporting discrimination to an agency for action. We know that in almost every area covered by the law there is under-reporting. So to the extent we think that is the whole universe of discrimination, I would say probably not. People can of course go to court and I think there are examples of that, but we do not track how many people are going to court. I think we are just one agency. The other piece I will say is that the state division also has jurisdiction over fair chance complaints filed within their jurisdiction, which is the whole state. So again, we are like one piece of the picture, but I do not think our inquiries and claim numbers paint a picture of what is happening in New York City writ large.

Yeah. I mean, I think what the question is trying to get at is just trying to understand why so many inquiries do not have a protected class identified.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I can look — one of the statistics here is that FY2022 inquiries for fair chance employment discrimination were really high, almost 600 inquiries, approximately one in every six inquiries where there was a protected class identified. It just seems surprising that with a huge surge in inquiries about fair chance employment protections, only 18 of those claims were filed as complaints, zero were resolved through pre-complaint intervention, and so we are just trying to understand what happened to the rest of the people.

So I think just on the data point, the pre-complaint interventions for one year may be resolved in a subsequent year. So there is not like a one-to-one ratio with the number of inquiries that come in in FY25 and how many are resolved through pre-complaint intervention. But I think the reason so many inquiries have a non-jurisdiction — I mean, a basis we do not have — is because at that stage people may not have provided all of the information for their case. So we might get a web form that says "I experienced discrimination," we call the person back, and then that data is filled in over time after we are able to contact the person. So at the inquiry stage, we just do not always have the full picture to be able to label what the connection is. But if we can identify a protected category, it is then reported in that way in our system.

So if something is not identified, a claim could still be filed within that same year. Correct.

Yeah. And it might also happen in the next year, reconciled in the data. Right.

Yeah. So that does not mean nothing happens. It means at the time that the inquiry was made, we are not sure what the full picture was, but it is the job of our intake folks and our investigators to identify if there is a protected category once we connect with the person who made that inquiry.

Okay. Is there an official checklist used to identify a case that is very urgent, time-sensitive, or otherwise a good candidate for early intervention?

I think there are a number of tools. I do not know that we have a specific checklist. I will have to get back to you on that.

Okay. Just a few more questions. How often would you say fair chance employment cases qualify for those expedited processes on average?

So I think the expedited processes have been most prevalently used in the disability space and the source of income space. In employment, where we are often collecting information — as we have already talked about with the fair chance employment process, it is a little bit complicated — it is not as easy to spot or reconcile as some of our other protected categories. I mean, this is a difference between fair chance and other protected categories. You can ultimately still consider a criminal history if you are an employer or housing provider. The law sets up the time frames to do that. It sets up procedural requirements for that, but it is not like race or disability where it is a non-starter to consider that factor as a result of both state and federal law. There are regulations that require in some instances employers or housing providers to look at and evaluate criminal history. So it makes it just a more complicated analysis on the enforcement side.

And so thank you for that. So you would say that for the disability and source of income cases, you are expediting those cases — what, 50% of the time?

I do not think we can give a number for that because it depends on the year, kind of what the incoming is and what the bulk of those cases are, but we can try and run at least historical data and get back to you on that.

That would be helpful to know. And then my last question on this topic is: why has CCHR not resolved any fair chance inquiries through pre-complaint interventions since 2021?

So I will have to go back to our enforcement team and try and sus out the answer to that question. I think it is going to be along the lines of the things that I was saying. I think in the beginning periods we saw a lot of facial violations that were ads and applications. I think our cases now are much more about the processes that are being used in hiring. Does that make sense? Like, the facial violations — if we see an ad and it is violative, you can pick up the phone and say "correct that ad."

Correct.

And that is a pre-complaint intervention action. And if someone says "my criminal history was used inappropriately during my hiring process," it is going to take us longer to both collect the information on that, potentially do an RFI to the employer — request for information — to try and identify where the process went wrong vis-à-vis fair chance.

But that is my anecdotal response and I have to circle back.

Yeah. Any data or additional information that you could provide in the follow-up to explain that would be appreciated, because it seems like it is quite a bit of a difference. If it is the nature of the inquiries, that is understandable, but we would just like to have a little more on that. I am going to pass it over to the public advocate who wants to make a statement.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Welcome, deputy commissioner and director. As mentioned, my name is Jumaane Williams, public advocate of the City of New York. I want to thank Chair Nurse and the members of the Committee on Civil and Human Rights for upholding this important hearing. An estimated 2.1 million people in New York State have a criminal record and roughly 337,000 have spent time in prison. Contact with the criminal legal system can impact every aspect of a person's life, from housing to relationships to mental health and physical health. Perhaps the biggest barrier of a criminal record or time spent in prison is to employment. The stigma of a criminal record, even when the record has nothing to do with the responsibilities of a particular job, is difficult to overcome. Trades bound by occupational licenses, for example, like cosmetology or addiction counseling, are subject to background checks, and a criminal history may disqualify a person.

These barriers to employment have a real economic impact. A Brennan Center analysis estimates that underemployment related to a criminal record costs New Yorkers around 12.6 billion dollars annually. For Black and Latino people who already have lower average lifetime earnings than white counterparts and are more likely to be justice-involved, this impact is even greater. Racial disparities in the criminal legal system flow directly into economic inequality and the racial wealth gap, and we must take steps to reduce the economic damage of mass incarceration in New York City and beyond.

The Fair Chance Act, which I was proud to be the prime sponsor of as a council member, went into effect in October of 2015, limiting when and how most New York City employers can consider a person's criminal conviction history or open criminal case when deciding to hire, fire, or discipline them. Sometimes called the ban-the-box law due to the prohibition on asking about prior criminal convictions on job applications. The City Council later amended the Fair Chance Act — proud as the public advocate to have been prime sponsor of that amendment — expanding protections for current employees as well as applicants. If an employer wishes to rescind a job offer, there are certain guidelines they must follow and specific factors they must use to analyze an applicant and determine if there is a direct relationship between the prior offense and the specific employment sought.

The Fair Chance Act and its amendments are critical in combating some of the economic harm of the criminal legal system on New Yorkers, but we can and should do more in New York State. Some misdemeanor and felony convictions cannot be sealed or expunged, underscoring the need for laws like the Fair Chance Act, the Fair Chance for Housing Act, and the Clean Slate Act. New Yorkers with criminal records are families and friends, co-workers and neighbors, and have the same rights to gain employment as anyone else. It is always a surprise to me that the two things that people need are the two things that are often times denied when people come home, which is employment and housing. And I do not know how you would be able to make it if you cannot get a house or be employed.

I remember we were told we were going to force people to hire particular people. I do not believe that is what happened. I do believe that more qualified people were hired. So I am happy that we are having this hearing. I would love to know if we have any numbers on the people that may have been hired who may not have otherwise been hired, and if we have had any complaints from employers.

Yes. So I think —

I am sorry, I meant employers. I know we may have —

Oh, complaints from employers.

Yes.

Formal legal complaints. No. I think when the amendments happened in 2019 there was a lot of — I did not start in my role until 2021 and we were still getting communications about how it was impossible to do a bifurcated background check and move the criminal history information to later in the process. That is not a complaint. I think it is an objection to the law and the idea that you mentioned, public advocate, which is moving the criminal history review to as far back as possible in the application process. Something that we tried to mirror in housing so that it really is the last possible thing someone looks at, which makes it easier to identify if that is the thing that is causing you concern about a particular applicant. So we have not had any formal legal complaints by employers, but we get a lot of questions and a lot of concerns that this is a burden.

I think we were expecting really some similar ideas in the housing space because housing providers were very concerned at the front end while the Bill was being negotiated. That said, some of the things that we saw as repeat violations in the fair chance employment context — which again are ads that are just violative of the law — we have not been seeing in the housing space. We worked pretty closely with REBNY and others when the law was being passed. There was a long window between the passage and the effective date, and so we were talking to all of those folks so that people had the notice that we had created and understood what the law required.

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I think the Fair Chance Housing Act is also written in a fairly clear way and there is kind of less back and forth in the process than there is in employment. So I would say there are just more questions and concerns from employers, if that is the kind of information you are looking for.

Yes, thank you. And I just do not know if we have any numbers of people who may have been hired.

So that we do not have. What we can pull is kind of the number of settlements in this space. I can say anecdotally that in fiscal year 23 to 26 we have about $3 million in civil penalties and damages that have accrued to people who have filed claims with CCHR. Civil penalties go to the City of New York. More than half of that amount has been damages going to people who were either not hired or passed over or treated inappropriately in the employment pipeline.

Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chair. I guess it would be safe to say that the sky actually did not fall, and people have not been forced to hire any particular person because of this law. Thank you.

Yeah, and I will just add to that because I think that was a question during the fair chance housing passage as well. We have heard anecdotally, and there is actually at least one article that says this, that if you put fair chance in place it actually causes more discrimination in hiring. So we got that question about housing. I think that is also, anecdotally, not what we are seeing happening. I think these laws are going to increase access and increase stability, as was intended.

Thank you. Thank you, public advocate. Yes, we are still here. The world is not falling apart, so far. All right. So I am going to ask about testing. From the very beginning, when fair chance employment laws first came into effect in late 2015, CCHR has prioritized proactive testing for violations, typically several hundred tests each year from what I understand. What types of violations do tests typically uncover? How are those resolved? Has testing ever helped identify repeat offenders? And there is one more question, but I will ask that one first.

Yeah. So I think we can use testing in a few different ways. One is kind of commission-initiated proactive testing, which is that we are just doing scans of websites, employment sites and job applications to find a facial violation. We also can use testing if something is reported to us as a tip, or we get an inquiry to confirm whether that practice is still ongoing. I do not have the numbers but I can say with confidence that testing has uncovered discriminatory ads and applications, and those things can be resolved without any complaint ever being filed. That is the case, but I do not have the exact numbers.

And repeat offenders — to identify people who are repeat offenders?

Yeah. So I think often there are repeat offenders because they will put out an ad and it is then circulated widely. So multiple violations are included in the civil penalties that we order for entities that violate the law. So if you had one ad versus 50 over time, there is going to be a higher amount of money that you are required to pay as a settlement for the case.

Well, I understand that, but if there is a corrective action with someone and it is resolved, have you found that they have done it again?

So I will have to get back to you about the fair chance employment space.

Okay. And then for testing for fair chance protections, in FY24 they were unusually low — 38 tests for discrimination on the basis of arrest and conviction record respectively — whereas in other years CCHR reported hundreds of tests. Can you tell us what happened that year and how that affected the claims CCHR was able to file?

And you said FY24?

Yeah. So I think, actually, the number of commission-initiated complaints for that year was not significantly lower than some other years. I would have to look back — I would have to inquire with our enforcement bureau why testing shifted in that particular year. But I see what you are saying, that the number was lower than it has been in the years before that. Since that time we have almost doubled or tripled testing in that space.

Okay. So what are the most common outcomes of pre-complaint interventions in relation to fair chance and employment? So I think I said this already — I think it is actually most often used in other spaces. So we will have to circle back on specific examples of pre-complaint resolutions for fair chance employment. And when you do use mediation and it fails, what are typically the next steps?

Yeah. So just on mediation, I think we have a formal mediation program at CCHR. Cases can be referred from the law enforcement bureau to a mediation that is handled by a trained mediator. We have used that historically in cases where both parties are represented. Ninety-nine percent of those cases have been in the employment space. If mediation fails, that can be referred back to the law enforcement bureau for the same settlements and outcomes that we have talked about. Ultimately, if a law enforcement bureau case cannot be settled, it is referred to OATH for an administrative trial.

And then for your community and government partners, could you tell us more about the community partners in this space? What does the selection process look like and to what extent are these partners compensated for their work with CCHR?

Yeah, sure. So I will talk about the housing space since that is the most recent and the one that we have been really involved with. I think I mentioned already that for fair chance housing we partnered with a public artist in residence, which is a city program through DCLA. We had embedded with us an artist who created a participatory theater education project on fair chance housing, where she had advisors who were justice-system-impacted individuals and brought this performance — which was created over several months with input from community members — to the Fortune Society, to the Center for Court Innovation, and we have a pending date to bring it to supportive housing with the Osborne Association. It has been very complicated to get into that space.

So Caitlyn, who was our public artist in residence, was compensated because that is a city program that compensates artists. She met over a series of several months with about 30 individuals who either were incarcerated at some point or have family members who were incarcerated. Those folks were reimbursed for their time through a gift card program — not direct compensation. But we recognize that time is valuable and that these folks are experts who were really helping us. We hope to do more of that. I do not know if we will have the resources to be able to do more of that.

And what is your system for receiving information from community partners on an occurrence or the pervasiveness of discriminatory conduct? How many referrals has CCHR received from community partners regarding fair chance protections in recent years for employment and housing?

Yeah. So the way that our system works — well, I should take a step back. I think referrals to us can happen in a lot of ways. We can be at a resource fair and someone can say, come over and talk to CCHR. That is kind of the warm handoff that we think is the gold standard. But there is also the possibility that individuals at Fortune or Osborne or one of the legal service providers we have been working with are told to contact CCHR. Our system currently tracks the individual's name, so we do not have full data on the referrals and where individuals learn about CCHR. That is something I know we want to be able to rectify with a different case management system, but we currently cannot report fully on that data. I can share anecdotal information. I can say in the housing space we have had six inquiries in FY26 to date, and two of those are handoffs from a legal re-entry organization.

Okay, I am going to shift to housing more specifically. I know you have been moving in and out of that, but given that it is new, we want to spend a little time on it. So just in terms of monitoring and enforcement, thinking about outreach — you mentioned that CCHR delivered trainings on fair chance housing to several hundred individuals and that CCHR offers a fair chance housing training by request. Do you have any numbers on how many people or organizations have requested this, or how many you have proactively reached out to in order to provide it?

Yeah. So fair chance housing-specific training — in FY25 we delivered that 16 times to about 176 people. In FY26 to date we have done 26 fair chance housing trainings reaching 354 people. Those are by request always. We do not turn away requests. If there is an individual requesting the training, we kind of aggregate that, so we are not doing a training for one person. I would say the numbers of trainings we have done mirror the number of requests we have gotten for that specific training.

And are these — excuse me, I have been trying and you have been looking at me while I am like... because I took allergy medicine and it is impacting me.

How many of these were roughly in person or online? What is typical? Do people ask you to come in person or do you mostly do these virtually?

So I think since the pandemic we have found that most people want to do trainings online because it is easier to get everyone together and to be able to schedule it. As I mentioned, the public artist in residence performances, which were really like theater and education, were all in person at the re-entry organization spaces. I think that is helpful for us because we can bring an intake law enforcement attorney. So people are learning about the law and then directly after that, folks can talk to someone to assess if they have a potential claim with CCHR. We really like to do them in person, but the majority of requests are virtual.

And are your mobile intake units a part of this outreach and education effort around housing?

So yeah, the kind of mobile intake that we have done, or the in-community intake, has been broader and has not really been targeted just on one type of violation. But as I said, the performances that we have done with Caitlyn have involved bringing a law enforcement attorney and then either me or a member of my team to be able to answer questions about the law that the artist cannot answer. That is our hope — to be expanding that work as well.

And for these mobile intake units, what would be a typical place that you would go to? Are you going to shelters? Are you going to commercial spaces?

Um, yeah. So mostly we have been going to community-based organizations because that is where people are coming already. We try to be in the space where people are going to be. I think Commissioner Clark is thinking about how we do this most effectively, and everything is on the table right now for how we are doing our outreach and intake. Really, at the time when we know folks are afraid to come to government offices, we also do online appointments just for that reason, so people do not have to come to our physical space.

And for testing — you have outlined all of the proactive enforcement that you have done for fair chance laws. When fair chance employment launched, CCHR filed over 250 claims in the first two years of its launch and averaged 112 claims annually over the first four years the law was enforced. For fair chance housing, we saw a similar enforcement strategy in New Jersey where their Division on Civil Rights brought over 200 enforcement actions in the first year that their Fair Chance and Housing Act came into effect. It seems that experts in the fair chance housing space report that this type of discrimination is fairly pervasive. Are you all going to be engaged in this way, similar to how you did with employment?

Yeah. So I will answer that and then I want to elaborate on some of the other outreach that we have been doing that I have not covered yet. I think actually New Jersey is a bit of an outlier in the number of enforcement actions that the state agency there has initiated. As I mentioned in response to the public advocate's remarks, we have not been seeing — or our law enforcement bureau has not been seeing — the illegal ads that we thought would be very prevalent, and which were a huge area of fair chance employment testing and enforcement. So I think that is a bit of a surprise. My understanding is that in New Jersey it was a lot of those illegal ads at the front end of enforcement.

When we were talking to other jurisdictions that have fair chance housing protections before the New York law went into effect, they had all seen very low numbers of complaints and were very focused on education and outreach. So that has really been our plan in this space — to spend the first year focused on outreach and education. But 100% we are planning to do proactive enforcement in this space. I think we are staffing up, or have now staffed up, a commission-initiated team to do some of the proactive work. They will be in full swing in FY27 and will definitely be focused on fair chance housing as one of many priorities.

We have also, when this law went into effect, reached out to background check companies to ensure that their products could actually do what we are now requiring in New York City, which is to limit the look-back periods for what is showing up in a background check, and to also be able to move the background check piece of looking at someone's tenancy score until later on in the process. That is one of our ways to think systemically about how we are ensuring that housing providers can comply with the law. They often use the same products as each other, so trying to think from a systems perspective about how we address that.

The other pieces I will just say for enforcement: we are already in housing cases that are now with us and being settled. When I say "we," I mean our enforcement team — we are asking housing providers about how they look at criminal history and baking that into settlements that they are doing now, because we are thinking proactively. We know that we cannot wait for all these cases to come to us. People with criminal histories are worried mostly about securing housing and might want to file a claim later, but we know that it is our duty to be proactively doing this work and we are setting ourselves up to be able to do that.

The last thing, which relates really to the community partnerships, is that we will be developing an intake form that service providers can have, so that if individuals are reporting to them, they know what information CCHR is going to want to be able to verify a potential claim. The service providers can work with individuals to gather that information on the front end, so when they come to us there is not a lot of back and forth. I think it lowers the amount of time it takes to file a complaint with us. That is really taking a lesson from the source of income space, where we work very closely with Unlock NYC and they have an intake form that they use for their community members.

Is there a specific percentage or number of tests that you all believe annually kind of hits the right mark in terms of monitoring and deterring this type of discrimination, or is it just based on capacity?

It is in part based on capacity. I think the enforcement team is also looking at what community partners are saying and thinking about — if we are not seeing ads that are illegal anecdotally, we are probably not going to invest a lot of time into trying to find those ads, because we know there are spaces where there are still facial violations. I think the complicating factor for testing in the housing space for fair chance is that to be able to move ahead with an application, you have to have a social security number in most instances. So it is actually much harder than what we see in source of income, which is often ghosting or still-illegal ads. If we have a tester who is calling and saying "I have a voucher" and they are being ghosted, it is pretty clear discrimination is taking place. Because we are not seeing the illegal ads in the fair chance housing space, we have to figure out what our ability to do testing is, because we do not have profiles for people with social security numbers. That is a different animal than the testing we have done to date, either in the employment space or the housing space. So I think there are some open questions about that.

Okay. Interesting. And just in terms of enforcement, I will ask some questions about budgeting.

When the fair chance in housing law was passed, the Council worked with OMB to determine that $1.4 million in new funding would be necessary to hire 10 staff to implement this law. Did we get that budget increase? Did we hire the 10 people? Kind of where are we at? How many attorneys have you been able to hire?

Yeah. So we did not get a budget increase with the Fair Chance Act passage. As I mentioned, we ran a campaign that was about a $90,000 campaign. I think the fiscal impact statement called for a $600,000 campaign, so those numbers are not the same. I will say fair chance housing is actually a citywide priority. It is embedded into the HPD "Where We Live" plan. We have been working with HPD and will continue to work with HPD to raise awareness, and there is a five-year commitment in the "Where We Live" plan to educate New Yorkers on fair chance housing specifically. As you know, we are still in preliminary phases and that is a priority for us, but not just us, because as you have identified and we have been talking about, this protection is very important for lots of equity reasons for New York City. So it is also not just CCHR — I think it is a whole administration push.

Well, we hope.

Yeah, we hope. We will only know when the money is actually put there to make that real.

So just between the law being adopted and where we are today, just to clarify for the record — have we hired any additional staff attorneys for fair chance housing?

So yes, we have. Again, there is a temporal connection, which is not necessarily that we hire people to do fair chance work specifically. But since 2024 we have hired 15 staff-level attorney positions.

Okay. I want to recognize that CM Hanif has joined us. And then for the number of inquiries — we have talked about this before. The number of inquiries that CCHR reports annually has increased from roughly 9,000 in FY21 to nearly 16,000 in FY26. So people are knowing about this and making use of it. How many people staff the CCHR info line and when was the last time that staff for that line was increased?

Yeah. So I think we talked about this at the preliminary budget hearing as well. There were eight people on our info line, working very hard every day. We have hired in the info line space. Again, the numbers I have are since 2024 — we have hired four people into the info line. But those numbers do not necessarily account for attrition, so the number of people on the info line may not have grown, but we have hired into that space and the current number is eight. I think the commissioner has flagged an interest in increasing our ability to move cases faster. That includes from the first conversation with the info line to having a meeting with an attorney and ultimately resolving cases. So we are looking hard at our current number-one resource, which is our people, and thinking about how we...

(01:07:41)

Effectively staff up so we can reach New Yorkers.

My question — and I know the Council just gave you another line — is there is another hotline that is being stood up by your office.

There is, yeah. Intro 380.

At some point will be signed up, and that will not come with additional staff. So will those eight people be also dealing with this other hotline?

Yes, but we are again thinking about how do we expand the capacity of that. Obviously the frontline engagement with New Yorkers is critical. So thinking about what it looked like in FY27. I think — I am not an optimist, but we are going to remain optimistic that we can move the needle in the prelim budget conversations. With all of these bills, we have identified the fiscal impact. Regardless of whether we get new headcount, we are full steam ahead on meeting New Yorkers' needs. I think we do not turn people away. We do not also move as quickly as many people would desire. That is a reality that we are going to do our best to resolve.

Okay. I have only a few more questions. My understanding is CCHR had not recorded any inquiries or claims for housing discrimination on the basis of arrest or conviction record in FY2025. Yet we do know community organizations report this type of discrimination is rampant. Does CCHR disagree with the idea that fair chance housing violations are widespread? What is the framework for expedited handling of per se violations and the penalty schedule for fair chance housing?

Sure. I think we understand that there is a lot of discrimination against people with criminal histories and we expect that as we move further into enforcement, we are going to see housing providers who are attempting to turn candidates away because they have a criminal history. We think the law is set up to try and alleviate that possibility as much as possible. Housing providers have to write down the reasons they are rejecting candidates. All of those materials are available now, so you really have to put your cards on the table, which will ultimately make enforcement more effective. We are removing some of the lack of transparency in the housing market, which I think has allowed this type of discrimination to go unmitigated for a very long time.

I will say even before the law went into effect, we did have a fair chance style case which was really based on disparate impact based on race and national origin. So we have been thinking about this issue — that is a 2018 case — for quite a long time. We do not expect that the world has changed so much that this type of discrimination has gone away. We do not have a penalty schedule as such. The way that our civil penalties and damages work is that we look at how willing someone is to work with us, how rampant or bad faith their discriminatory conduct was, as well as the size of — in this case — a housing provider and a realtor, to try and assess damages and civil penalties that have a disincentivizing effect. Otherwise there is no reason folks would not engage in discrimination again. But there might have been another part of your question that I did not address.

Yeah, that is okay. Does your office have plans to publish official rules for expediting cases and an official penalty schedule?

I think we are discussing it. We are not 100% in agreement on whether that is helpful or not. I think there was a time that was part of the employment schema, and I think we have recently been working on rules and are actually removing that kind of early penalty scheme. I think part of spending the first year on awareness and education is that there is not as much of a runway to say we did not know or this was too hard. But I think we will discuss that internally. I do not think we have a resolution or a clear position on that yet.

Okay. I think those are my questions. CM, do you have any questions? Okay. Thank you so much for coming and sharing as much information as you can. I really appreciate it. Certainly we want to make sure that there are resources in place and I know that we are all advocating for that because this is a big task. If there are additional resources required for rulemaking, please let us know. We would like to be helpful here. Thank you so much.

Can I — I am going to use this opportunity. Hillary reminded me of something that I should say, which is really an area I think that we would love to explore with you all. I think we touched upon this in a different setting: the idea of increasing civil penalties as a disincentive for discriminators. That is not just fair chance housing — that is across the board. The civil penalty amounts in the human rights law have not been raised in 20 years or so. Everything else in the market has gotten more expensive, but not particularly discrimination. So I think that is an area where we would love to speak more with stakeholders and with the Council about the possibility of pursuing that.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time and energy.

Yes. We are going to take a five-minute break before testimony and then we will go right into testimony. All right, y'all. Thanks for hanging tough. It was actually pretty quick. I am now going to open the hearing for public testimony. I have to read this preamble because we have had some incidents. I remind members of the public that this is a formal government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the Sergeant-at-Arms for inclusion in the hearing record. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance card with the Sergeant-at-Arms and wait to be recognized. When recognized, you will have three minutes to speak on today's hearing topic. We are a smaller crowd, so I think we will be okay. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the Sergeant-at-Arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing. Audio and video recordings will not be accepted.

Our first panel will be Robert Deere, Legal Aid Society; Anna Arin Gallagher; and KB White. You can approach — I think there are only two. Is there three mics over there? Oh, three seats. Okay, fine. You can begin in any order you would like. Do not be shy.

All right. I was not sure. Good morning. Robert Dazir. I am with the Legal Aid Society and the Fair Chance for Housing Coalition. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Our coalition worked hard to get the law passed and we are happy to move forward and start seeing enforcement and start seeing results for our clients and the people that we interact with in the community.

The Fair Chance for Housing Act is a significant step forward in advancing equity and access to housing across New York City by limiting the use of criminal history in housing decisions and requiring a conditional offer before any background check. The law directly addresses longstanding barriers that have prevented many individuals from securing stable housing. Stable housing is closely tied to economic mobility and community well-being. By ensuring that applicants are first evaluated on their financial qualifications and rental history, the law seeks to create a process that balances legitimate safety concerns with the need for second chances.

At the same time, the promise of the law heavily depends on effective enforcement. The complaint process involves multiple steps, including intake, investigation, potential mediation and adjudication. While this structure is designed to ensure fairness and due process, it also introduces friction that can deter complaints or delay resolution. Without consistent visible enforcement, there is a real risk that non-compliance will go unchecked, undermining the law's intended impact.

The commission is already tasked with enforcing a broad range of civil rights protections across employment, housing and public accommodations. Adding the Fair Chance for Housing Act to its portfolio increases both the volume and complexity of its workload. If the agency lacks sufficient resources, enforcement may become reactive rather than proactive, thereby limiting the law's effectiveness.

For the act to achieve its goal, sustained investment is essential. Additional funding should be directed towards hiring investigators, expanding legal staff and improving data collection systems. Clear public reporting on complaints, outcomes and timelines would also strengthen accountability and public confidence. In parallel, targeted education campaigns for stakeholders can prevent violations before they occur. We also recommend establishing standardized guidance for housing providers, streamlining the complaint intake process to reduce barriers for applicants, and exploring proactive auditing or testing mechanisms to identify patterns of discrimination. Consideration could also be given to interim relief measures for applicants who may lose housing opportunities during lengthy investigations.

In sum, the Fair Chance for Housing Act is a well-conceived and necessary reform with the potential to produce meaningful social benefits. Realizing that potential, however, will require not only strong legal standards but also the institutional capacity to enforce them. With adequate resources, transparency and commitment, the City can ensure that the law delivers on its promise of fair access to housing for all. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. My name is Anna Arin Gallagher. I am the associate director of the civil justice practice at Brooklyn Defender Services. Our employment team provides legal representation and informal advocacy to people facing employment discrimination due to current or prior contact with the criminal legal system. Many of our clients are suspended or terminated from employment upon arrest and absent any finding of criminal culpability, while others are completely excluded from employment opportunities due to their criminal histories.

The Fair Chance Act is a critical Bill that helps ensure New Yorkers have the opportunity to get and keep jobs without their criminal history standing in the way. But even over a decade after the Fair Chance Act was passed, there is still much to do to ensure the potential of this groundbreaking law is fully realized. When the Fair Chance Act works, it provides vital protections for New Yorkers whose lives can otherwise be devastated by the fact of an arrest. Before the Fair Chance Act and the expanded protections the Council passed in 2021 — expanding the protections to pending arrests — our clients were often rendered unemployable for the duration of their criminal cases, a process that in the best case can take months.

Now, we sometimes work with employers to provide more information regarding pending charges to avoid suspensions or potential job rejections. In the event we are unable to help a client retain or find a job, we are sometimes able to use the protections in the law to negotiate settlements if employers have violated the law, which in turn can provide a lifeline to clients who are out of work.

But there are significant hurdles that continue to blunt the Fair Chance Act's impact. First, even 15 years after the Fair Chance Act took effect, many employers simply do not comply with the law. For example, we find near universal non-compliance among home health aide employers. The home health aide industry is among the most popular employers for our client base and it is an essential service. When home health aides are suspended, it harms not only the aides but obviously the patients that they are serving. I was recently working with a home health aide who had worked with a patient for over half a decade and was suspended because her employer thought they had to suspend her automatically. We recommend continued public education campaigns and early intervention to bring awareness to the Fair Chance Act to these employers so home health aides and other workers do not continue to face these automatic suspensions.

Second, the funding and staffing deficits at the City Commission on Human Rights have left the agency severely diminished. I am happy to hear Commissioner Clark is saying that she is endeavoring to have cases settle within a year. We have many cases that have not moved beyond the opening investigation stage for multiple years. Employers know how long cases at the commission take and we know that they are often unmotivated to settle cases quickly when they know the alternative is a case that will drag on for years. I was recently told by an investigator at the commission that she saw in her investigation communications where the employer was essentially saying they did not care if a commission complaint was filed because they were never going to face any repercussions. The commission must be adequately funded so it can properly and swiftly investigate cases, resolve cases early through mediation when appropriate and hold employers accountable. Thank you for holding this important hearing. Our written testimony will provide further details on recommendations to strengthen both the Fair Chance Act and Fair Chance for Housing.

Hello, my name is KB White. I am a staff attorney with the Legal Action Center. We are a statewide nonprofit that defends the civil rights of people with arrest and conviction histories throughout the state. We have a good perspective on what happens both at the city level and in the rest of the state where there are not these protections. I will talk briefly about two clients that we have had recently.

A national ride share company denied our client a job due to his 40-year-old conviction. That company never conducted the analysis that the Fair Chance Act requires. It did not provide a fair chance notice and never gave him a chance to respond. After our demand letter and advocacy with an attorney, the company did reverse course, pay damages and give that client the job. In a recent fair chance housing case, we successfully forced a landlord with nearly 10,000 units in its portfolio to reverse a denial with the help of CCHR. That is what enforcement looks like in our caseload.

The Fair Chance Act absolutely works. Our client is back to work because of it, but he should not have needed an attorney to make a decade-old law function. Last year alone, LAC handled approximately 1,600 employment-related matters and recovered hundreds of thousands of dollars for clients. The majority of those cases reached out to us only because employers completely ignored the Fair Chance Act. We see the same large companies in case after case, proving that current penalties do not move them, and after a complaint is filed at the commission, years passing until resolution is absolutely not unusual. We do not believe that that is deterrence at all. It is just the cost of doing business — a calculation that these companies make that favors continued non-compliance.

The commission already has a lot of tools at its disposal. I was pleased to hear the commission state that they were interested in raising civil penalties. They do have the ability to impose penalties up to a quarter of a million dollars per discriminatory practice as it is stated in the law right now. Unlike individual applicants, they are not bound by forced arbitration, which we see quite a bit. So I will just say we ask for clear, accessible early intervention processes. The pre-complaint process can work in these instances — not just with source of income and with housing, but with arrest and conviction discrimination as well. We want penalty floors at scale relative to repeat conduct and to the size of the company. We want practice change required, not optional, when the commission is involved in mediation. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a question for you on the repeat offenders, particularly the large ones, because that was a question we asked. The answer was that it was largely related to someone having put out a bunch of ads in multiple different mediums, and therefore the count is high, but it is not necessarily a repeat offender. When I asked whether, even after corrective action, they see it again, I do not believe they said that they did. So I am curious to hear who you are talking about and what types of sectors they are coming from.

Sure. I would say that a lot of the organizations — and Anna can also speak to this — we see ride share companies, Uber, Lyft, Amazon, Grubhub... these larger companies. I can understand the commission saying that there are a bunch of different ads going out and so they are just kind of playing whack-a-mole. But they are represented by counsel and we are settling these cases in large part. A lot of the time when we go to the commission, I know the commission is interested in early intervention — like cutting off the ads — because that will affect a lot of people. Whenever we see one of those types of cases, LAC's practice is to go to the commission with those because they do intervene and get great penalties for that. But when it is just a one-off client with the same company, we are speaking to the same attorneys from those offices all the time.

Do you know if CCHR has gone and done trainings for these companies that you are aware of, or have they communicated that to you all?

Not that I am aware of.

Okay. For Robert, can you speak a little bit more about the number and nature of the fair chance housing cases your organization or partner organizations have seen in the years since the law came into effect?

Sure. We have not directly handled a lot of those cases. I think what we have been focused on with the coalition is education — working with community-based organizations to educate them about the act and what is required, and encouraging their members to come forward and bring forth those complaints. What we have done — prior to the passage of the act — Legal Aid was involved in a case involving an applicant in a development in Queens where they were subject to the same kind of discrimination: having gone through a long process of applying for an apartment, all of the markers checking out, and then at the end the rug pulled out because of a past conviction. So we were part of bringing a case that sets standards for city-subsidized housing. Subsequent to that, the act was passed. We are kind of getting our feet under us as far as setting up mechanisms to receive these cases. But we have been very actively out in the community as part of the Fair Chance for Housing Coalition doing the education and the outreach.

And where have you seen these cases really brought? Who is bringing the largest number of these cases forward?

Within our criminal practice, we work on a lot of the issues that our clients present. We are seeing discrimination against people with vouchers, people because of family composition, and also the issues around criminal history. As far as now, we have been referring those cases to our partners, alerting them about this for investigation and also referring people to pursue their complaints at the commission. That is why we are really concerned about the resources that the commission has and their ability to move these cases forward. We understand we are in the budget season. There has been a lot of discussion about the resources that the commission will receive. So with all the duties that...

(01:38:40)

They already have, and this is a little different from source of income discrimination in that it is a multi-step process, as far as the information that an owner has to put forward when they are rejecting an application. We recognize that they are going to require resources to be able to be effective.

(01:39:03)

For anyone here on the panel, if there is anything else you want to add, your experience working with CCHR — I know especially for Fair Chance Housing it is still in early stages — but if there is anything else you would like to share on the record, no sweat. No pressure either.

(01:39:28)

No, I will just say that in the cases where we have had clients who have met with commission staff about emotional distress interviews and such, they have uniformly been great and professional. They just seem so overworked. Cases are so slow. I do not mean to criticize any individual people at the commission. It is just that the overall process is a really long one.

(01:39:52)

Yeah, agreed. Okay. Well, thank you all for coming and for your testimony. I would love to follow up about the universal non-compliance with the home health aides and maybe we could strategize around that. But thank you for coming. The next panel will be Paul Keefe, Ella Neaf — sorry, I am really bad at this — and Evette Chen. Why do we not start with you, Paul, then we will move down, and Evette is on the Zoom.

(01:40:44)

Okay, great. So my name is Paul Keefe. I am vice president of legal services at Community Service Society of New York. I spent most of my legal career advocating on behalf of people with criminal records. I began at CSS as a staff attorney and was the lead legal advocate behind the Fair Chance Act in 2015, and then I moved to the commission to enforce it for seven years. Now I am back at CSS. I want to spend my time today just talking about what enforcement looks like at the commission when it is very effective.

The commission has a lot of powers that a private litigant does not have. It is the driver of all litigation, so it can decide to settle a case or not. In doing so it can impose civil penalties and also use the threat of high civil penalties to create policy changes that a private litigant simply could not. That is going to affect how the company operates systemically. While I was there, we routinely not only examined their hiring policies in every case and drafted them so we know that HR is following the Fair Chance Act and looking at the right factors and making the right decisions, but we could also get things that go beyond the Fair Chance Act. We could say we will lower the civil penalties if you apply the Fair Chance Act throughout New York State, throughout the country. We got some national employers to ban the box nationwide. We could say, can you exclude any positions from background checks at all? So there is just a position with a lot of supervision, maybe low responsibility, where you do not need a background check, or there are some kinds of convictions that you just know are going to be acceptable because so much time has passed and it is a minor conviction.

We also worked with national employers to allow local hiring managers to override the decision of a corporate HR department. Oftentimes for big employers, someone will go to apply and the manager who meets them and interviews them wants to hire them, but then HR in Ohio will look at their record and say, "No, we cannot hire them." That really goes against the intent of the Fair Chance Act, which is a dialogue between the employer and the employee about what the risks are and whether the employee can work safely in that environment. We also did targeted hiring with re-entry organizations. We would say you have to do a certain number of job fairs with an organization for a certain amount of time, and you have to interview every candidate who goes through a training program that makes them qualified to work at your company. We really tried to work at increasing the pipeline of people with records working for particular companies.

I am just going to end by echoing the need for increased funding for the commission. I am part of the group advocating for $25 million and consistent funding to allow the commission to become a credible adversary to employers and reach the point where employers take them seriously when a complaint is brought.

(01:43:57)

Hi, good morning. My name is Ellen Alpa and I am a staff attorney with the Worker Justice Project, an initiative of the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Practice that fights employment discrimination faced by individuals with criminal records living in New York City. Thank you, Chair Nurse and the committee for the opportunity to provide testimony today.

To start, I just want to express Legal Aid's strong support for the Fair Chance Act and share some of the wonderful victories that it has allowed us to achieve. Since the act's expansion in July 2021, the Worker Justice Project has provided direct legal assistance to more than 2,400 workers and provided over 5,600 direct consultations to our criminal defense attorneys. We have strategically used the amended Fair Chance Act to get employment reinstatement and financial compensation for more than 720 workers, many of them with pending criminal cases. The Fair Chance Act has been transformative as it has created real pathways to employment stability for working-class New Yorkers who otherwise would be shut out of the labor market.

Although passage and subsequent modifications of the act have been crucial to strengthening protections for New York workers with criminal records, important gaps remain that have to be addressed. My written testimony addresses some of these gaps in depth, including the universal non-compliance of home health aide organizations. But I wanted to use my time here today to focus on the fact that New York City Department of Education employees and contractors, who make up a significant portion of the clients that we serve at Legal Aid, are excluded from the protections of the Fair Chance Act. The 2021 amendment does not apply to public agencies that take adverse action against a current employee where the public agency follows their own disciplinary process set forth in agency rules. So theoretically, there is a disciplinary process for DOE workers laid out in Chancellor's Regulation C105. However, in practice, the Department of Education suspends almost all DOE non-unionized employees and contractors who are arrested, regardless of their role or the nature of the charges, until the criminal case is fully resolved. The suspensions occur without pay, without meaningful review, and without any avenue for appeal. Some unionized DOE employees who are protected by collective bargaining agreements fare better, but a large number are still subjected to unfair suspensions and loss of pay.

This leaves DOE workers in prolonged financial hardship and uncertainty even when the charges are minor or entirely unrelated to their job.

Therefore, we urge the Council to explicitly extend Fair Chance protections to these workers. I go into greater detail about the issues related to Fair Chance Act enforcement and make further suggestions in my written testimony. The Fair Chance Act has been monumental for strengthening workers' rights in New York City. We hope that going forward, the City Council will continue to solicit feedback from legal service providers and continue to make changes to the law to fortify these protections that provide crucial relief for New York City workers. Thanks.

(01:47:10)

I do have some follow-up questions for you, but I am going to let Evette go. Evette, if you are online, you can begin testifying now.

(01:47:23)

Great. Thank you.

(01:47:25)

Hello, my name is Ivet Chen. I am a policy associate at the Fair Housing Justice Center, a civil rights nonprofit organization serving the NYC area. Our mission is to eliminate housing discrimination, promote accessible and inclusive communities, and strengthen the enforcement of fair housing laws. Chair Sandy Nurse and the Committee on Civil and Human Rights, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

Just to reiterate some of the past testimonies, we ask the committee to ensure that CCHR is adequately funded and to increase the CCHR budget by $10 million, part of which can be spent on proper education and outreach on the Fair Chance Act in housing. A robust budget will ensure that CCHR can meaningfully enforce fair housing laws, including the Fair Chance Act, and improve the lives of countless New Yorkers in the areas of employment, public accommodations and housing. The commission is responsible for informing housing providers and the public about their rights and obligations under the law, processing Fair Chance Act and housing complaints, mediating cases and filing enforcement actions. But the commission has not received an increase in its budget to support this new protection.

Anecdotally, the Fair Housing Justice Center has not seen a significant increase in complaints related to the Fair Chance Act, which we suspect is due to the public being unaware of the law. Early investigation of and enforcement of this law by FHJC has demonstrated that providers are either ignoring or uneducated about their obligations under the law and the penalties they may face for violating it. The Fair Chance Act in housing needs institutional capacity to enforce the law effectively, and a well-funded CCHR will ensure that the promise of fair housing is real for all New Yorkers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

(01:49:16)

Thank you. I have a question about the DOE workers. I know that you said you submitted more details, but are you saying that folks are suspended or terminated for any charge after an arrest?

(01:49:34)

Yeah, that is correct. So basically what happens is, when they are arrested, due to the fact that they were fingerprinted for their employment at DOE, there is an automatic arrest notification sent to the DOE and the Office of Personnel Investigation. They then also almost automatically suspend the employee or the contractor in question. There is virtually no recourse. There is no appeal process. In theory, when you read the regulations, it says that there is a review, but what exactly goes into this review is unclear. What happens in practice is that nearly 100% of individuals with pending cases are just suspended, and OPI will not allow them back to work until the case is resolved and they have a certificate of disposition from the court.

(01:50:26)

And this is even for folks who might not work at a school? I mean, I could understand the...

(01:50:33)

...hysteria. I mean, I do not know if you have been to a Community Council meeting or any of these parent meetings. I do not have children, so I do not have to go to those, but I have been to them and my staff go to them, and it is not fun when situations like that arise. So is this also for people who are not actually working at a school site? I have had clients that are IT personnel who do not interact with children and still completely lose their employment until the case is resolved.

(01:51:04)

Okay. I think we can look into that. Certainly I think it is worth clarifying the process and making sure that it is actually being used. I think this is a hard-pressed environment to create that. But yeah, we could probably see what we can do and the world will not fall apart. Well, thank you so much for that testimony. If there is anything else you all want to add, please do. Otherwise, thank you for coming today.

(01:51:33)

Thank you.

(01:51:35)

If I may, Chair, I just wanted to add one other thing, which is that the City also should work toward — and this is in my testimony — becoming a fair chance employer itself. Obviously, the City is the largest employer in New York City. I am old enough to remember when Michael Bloomberg issued an executive order in 2011 that banned the box for city employment. So even before the Fair Chance Act came into effect, the mayor was able to do that. The kinds of remedies that I talked about that the commission can impose, and the kinds of limits on looking back at criminal records that the Clean Slate Act imposes, do not apply to public employment. Those can still be implemented affirmatively by the City using the same justifications and rationale of bringing people out of poverty and also just giving them the chance to not have to answer about their record anymore after a certain amount of time has passed.

(01:52:33)

Okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Is there anyone who wanted to testify today that has not signed up? Going once, going twice, going three times. Okay. Thank you everybody for this hearing. Thank you to the committee staff for all your hard work. Thank you, CM Hanif, for hanging through. Appreciate you, sergeants. I am going to close this hearing.