New York Attorney General Letitia James revamped her office’s fair housing enforcement program, increasing the size of each grant but limiting the effort to the Albany region after an earlier statewide proposal failed to pass attract bidders.

The new proposal aims to launch one or two new programs in the capital region, at a total cost of up to $2.3 million. The previous program called for up to four new programs in disadvantaged areas of the state with a total budget of up to $3 million. Funding comes from license fees and discrimination penalties paid by estate agents. The remaining money can be used for anti-bias programs in future years, the attorney general’s office said.

Despite the lower overall cost of the effort, each individual grant is now larger than before. The attorney general is now giving up to $400,000 a year — up from the previous maximum of $250,000 — to nonprofit groups or government agencies to help them launch the new fair housing testing, enforcement and advocacy programs. The program spans two years, beginning tentatively in January, with three potential one-year renewals thereafter.

The Capital Region is “the most populous region of the state” without a large-scale fair housing program, and providing services there “would help protect families from discrimination,” the attorney general’s office said in its request for bids last month . .

The attorney general’s office acknowledged in September that the previous version of the effort drew no bids, with the groups saying the funding levels and two-to-three-year timeframe were insufficient.

The revamped program includes a grant of up to $250,000 over two years for an experienced fair housing agency to provide training and other services for one or two new programs.

The larger grant for each new program “makes a lot of sense” and is in line with federal Department of Housing and Urban Development fair housing enforcement grants, said Ian Wilder, executive director of Long Island Housing Services in Bohemia. Wilder said his group will not apply for state funding because its location is too far from the Capital Region. Any group launching a new program will need generous funding, he said, because it will build discrimination cases “that could go into federal litigation, so you have to have very high quality control from the beginning.” .

Each enforcement program will include undercover testers who meet with real estate agents and others to determine whether they treat potential renters or homebuyers differently based on race, disability, familial status or other characteristics.

The attorney general’s office “is committed to supporting organizations working to bring fair housing programs to the regions that need them most because housing is a fundamental right,” James said in a statement.

The application program, she said, “was developed with input from advocates and experienced organizations and will provide the funding needed to develop, staff, train and launch new fair housing programs in areas currently underserved by the organizations qualified for fair housing”.

The program is funded by license fees and discrimination fines paid by real estate professionals to the New York State Department. The agency collects $10 from agents and $30 from brokers each time they obtain or renew a license. It can also impose fines of up to $2,000 on agents found to have engaged in discrimination. The department has collected more than $3 million for the program, including $84,217 in penalties, spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla said last month. The funding mechanism was established by one of nine new laws enacted in 2021 in response to Newsday’s “Long Island Divided” investigation into housing discrimination on Long Island. The three-year probe used undercover tests and found evidence of widespread discrimination against black homebuyers.

The application deadline for bidders is November 22. The attorney general expects to announce the results of the auction on December 10.

Maura McDermott is a reporter in the investigative bureau. Since starting at Newsday in 2012, she has also covered real estate and health care businesses.