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Black renters in Greater Boston face enormous and widespread hurdles to viewing apartments and finding brokers who will work with them, researchers from Suffolk University Law School and The Analysis Group found.
A report published Wednesday morning and funded by the Boston Foundation details the findings of Suffolk’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program. In research conducted from August 2018 to August 2019, 100 Black and 100 white testers found white market-rate renters were able to arrange to view apartments 80 percent of the time, while Black market-rate renters were only able to secure showings 48 percent of the time.
The study echoes findings of an extensive investigation conducted on Long Island by Newsday in 2019 that found widespread discrimination.
“We expected the numbers to be high, based on what we see in our work every day, but this is much more pervasive evidence of discrimination than any of us thought we would find,” Jamie Langowski, assistant director of the Housing Discrimination Testing Program, in a press briefing Wednesday morning.
The study found many real estate agents blatantly discriminated against Black testers. Brokers showed white market-rate testers twice as many apartments as Black market-rate testers and provided them with better customer service. For example, white market-rate renters were offered more incentives to rent, more scheduling flexibility and received more positive comments from their brokers.
Of particular concern to researchers was the practice of “ghosting” by brokers when dealing with Black testers, where the broker would suddenly cut off all communication without explanation. Testers were assigned stereotypically “white” and “Black” names identified in previous research in discrimination, Langowski said, and all had the same credit score and income, both of which were sufficient to rent all apartments in the test. However, white testers continued to hear back from agents 92 percent of the time. Black testers only heard back 62 percent of the time.
In one test, the listing broker abruptly changed their tone and cut off communication with a Black tester named “Kareem” after he told the broker his name and that he would be using a voucher. Another Black market-rate tester left three voicemails for the listing introducing himself as “Tremayne” but never received a call back. The white market-rate tester in this case, named “Brad,” was able to make an appointment to tour the unit and while the broker was unable to attend, he called the tester back offering to reschedule. The broker told the white voucher-holding tester, after he noting he would be using a voucher, that he would be called back. The broker never did.
The report also details rampant discrimination against renters using Section 8 vouchers – against the law in Massachusetts – with testers who told brokers they would be using vouchers, regardless of their race, were unable to set up appointments to view apartments much of the time. White voucher-holders were able to view apartments 12 percent of the time, while Black voucher-holders were able to view apartments 18 percent of the time.
Suffolk’s Langowski said the listings used in the study were randomly selected and limited to neighborhoods in Greater Boston’s inner core reachable by public transit. Testers did not know each other, participated in only one test each, and, in each test, variables like income, credit score, sex, disability, familial size or status or gender identity were eliminated.
The report did not pinpoint a single cause of the discrimination, but anecdotes from testers suggest that a range of issues are at play, from some landlords being unwilling to rent to holders of Section 8 vouchers, to brokers screening tenants for “people with quiet lifestyles who work, not CEOs necessarily, but people with good jobs,” to more blatantly racist attitudes on the part of some brokers.
Massachusetts already has laws on the books barring discrimination on the basis of race or source of income. However, enforcement of these laws is limited, researchers said, and sanctions against brokers who break Fair Housing laws take a long time to implement. Most enforcement is limited to responding to complaints by renters who experienced discrimination, but that only catches a limited number of cases and relies on minority renters knowing their legal rights, members of a panel discussion following the report’s release said.
“As people of color, we’ve normalized the discrimination,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights. “We’re used to being told ‘we’re not taking the voucher anymore’ [or being denied an apartment] … so someone may not show up at Lawyers for Civil Rights or file a complaint.”
Researchers say policymakers should increase penalties for Fair Housing violations and improve and lengthen Fair Housing trainings, and significantly strengthen Fair Housing enforcement with a state-funded “legal strike force” to assist voucher-holders and state-funded testing to detect discrimination.
“Change also requires strong measures of accountability and more enforcement for lasting impact,” said Orlando Watkins, director of programs at The Boston Foundation.
Greater Boston Real Estate Board CEO Greg Vasil said Wednesday morning that, while his organization had not yet finished reviewing the report, “as an organization we will not condone discrimination and any violations of the fair housing laws. It is just unacceptable.”
“The discrimination outlined in this report is both alarming and unacceptable. We are reviewing the specific recommendations outlined in the report, but we support all fair housing practices, equality, and inclusion,” Massachusetts Association of Realtors 2020 President Kurt Thompson said in an email to Banker & Tradesman. “We require our members to follow a strict code of ethics. We are committed to continuing to improve and uplift real estate practices in Massachusetts to help ensure that all consumers are treated fairly. We are committed to fighting discrimination and systemic racism in our industry wherever we find it.”
Thompson noted that, of the 80,000 licensed real estate agents in Massachusetts, only 25,000 are Realtors and “the public needs to know there is a difference.”
UPDATED 1:32 p.m., July 1, 2020: This story has been updated to include comments from MAR 2020 President Kurt Thompson.
