The Law charges the Commission with encouraging understanding and respect among New York City’s many communities. To address this mission, the Community Relations Bureau (CRB) provides services through the Commission’s five borough-based Community Service Centers.

The various services of the Community Relations Bureau’s field operation compose its Neighborhood Human Rights Program (NHRP). The NHRP works on a local level with block, tenant, religious, educational, merchant and community groups to stabilize communities, educate them about their protections under the Human Rights Law, and connect them to the Commission’s law enforcement functions and other City services.

Each field office, or Community Service Center, offers the Commission’s many services including: Immigrant Employment Rights training; Equal Access (disability access) investigations, workshops, and pre-complaint interventions; School Program sessions with three separate curricula (NYC Human Rights Law, Sexual Harassment, and Conflict Resolution); Peer Mediation Training in high and middle schools; and Mortgage Counseling and Predatory Loan Prevention to reduce predatory lending practices. Dedicated teams of Human Rights Specialists staff each borough office.

As part of a comprehensive public education campaign, the Commission published its informational booklet in several languages, including English, French, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish. The contents of these books appear on the Commission’s website: www.nyc. gov/cchr. In addition to those languages, some of the Commission’s info cards where translated into Creole, Arabic, Urdu, and Polish.

The Commission maintains its aggressive outreach campaign to the public through the programs it provides.

Immigrant Employment Rights

The Commission conducted 136 workshops and other outreach events during 2007 to inform immigrant workers, employers, and immigrant advocacy organizations about their rights and obligations under federal and City laws. The discussions, literature and PowerPoint presentations explained discrimination based on national origin and citizenship or alienage status. The citywide presentations were conducted in English, Spanish, Creole, and Russian.

Equal Access

The Commission continues to expand its Equal Access Program. In conjunction with LEB, CRB staff regularly conducts investigations and provides pre-complaint intervention when individuals experience accessibility problems. As a result, CRB staff successfully negotiated 147 modifications during 2007 through pre-complaint intervention and LEB negotiated an additional 30 modifications. Modifications include: installing permanent and portable ramps – both interior and exterior - bell and buzzer systems for entry to stores, offices, and apartment buildings, hand rails, grab bars, curb cuts, accessible ATM machines and teller windows, and accessible fitting rooms and bathrooms; widening of aisles; signage, permitting service animals in public accommodations; moving a family to a ground floor apartment -- making entry and exit to and from the building accessible; moving an individual to an accessible location while the elevator was under Community Relations Bureau COMMUNITY RELATIONS BUREAU 9 repair; providing listening devices for the hard of hearing in a theater; and changing a seating policy at a major annual sports tournament to add disability seating in all price levels. The Equal Access Program also provides extensive public education to senior citizens, the disabled community and advocates, healthcare and housing providers, and community members.

School Program

Commission staff members visited 54 City schools and 17 youth centers and conducted 529 sessions, teaching 19,985 students in grades 6-12 three basic curricula: the Human Rights Law, Sexual Harassment and Conflict Resolution. The Conflict Resolution workshops are the most requested and often lead to the schools’ interest in the Commission’s Peer Mediation Training Program.

The Commission’s Peer Mediation Training Program prepares middle and high school students to become Peer Mediators. These students then assist their peers in resolving differences before they escalate into violence. CRB’s approach to teaching young students how to be peer mediators is grounded in the principles that underlie the Human Rights Law -- tolerance, human dignity, and respect. The 8-10 week after-school voluntary program also teaches these young students valuable life skills such as patience, persistence, active listening, and problem solving, while presenting alternatives to threats and violence. Students, faculty, and staff report benefits from the program. Approximately 20 students per school participate in the Peer Mediation Training Program. The Commission published Talk it Over: A Peer Mediator’s Guide to assist the student mediators with the mediation process.

During the 2006-2007 school year, 204 high school students from 13 schools throughout the City graduated from the Peer Mediation Training Program.

Mortgage Counseling and Predatory Loan Prevention

The Commission expanded its number of trained counselors to six counselors in 2007. One or more counselors are assigned to each of the Commission’s borough-based Community Service Centers.

CRB staff members conduct outreach and counseling services to address the community instability created by predatory loan practices. These lending practices include excessively high fees and commissions, misrepresentation of the mortgage’s terms and conditions, high interest rates, repeated financing of loans, balloon payments, and the financing of high-cost credit insurance. CRB staff provided 720 counseling sessions for 246 homeowners facing foreclosure and also conducted 16 workshops, advising people about fair housing and lending laws.

The Commission continued its aggressive outreach campaign to complement its counseling services. Staff members distribute information which contains helpful resources, including consumer and banking information. The Commission also participates in homeownership seminars and predatory lending workshops in communities prone to this type of discrimination.

Other CRB Activities

The Commission also participates in activities to promote fair housing -- equal housing opportunity under the law. These activities include: fair housing training for providers and protected groups; resolution of informal housing complaints, particularly those that are disability-related; investigation of unlawful real estate practices; providing technical assistance to tenants as part of the Citywide Task Force on Housing Court; and active participation in community activities that encourage harmonious intergroup relations and 10 COMMUNITY RELATIONS BUREAU neighborhood stability in areas undergoing ethnic change. In 2007, CRB delivered 143 Fair Housing workshops.

CRB’s comprehensive database includes all of the Commission’s field activities. This software enables the Commission to track all CRB’s activities more efficiently and comprehensively.

By year-end, CRB staff delivered 58,578 units of service to individuals throughout the five boroughs.

The Commission’s educational programs and services were supplemented in 2007 with funding by JPMorgan Chase, the Tiger Baron Foundation, and the Christopher Reeve Foundation.

CRB Staff

The Community Relations Bureau consists of 31 program and field staff and 5 support staff members.