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 improve and stabilize communities, educate them about the protections they have 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 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 have also been printed in 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 267 workshops, ESOL classes, and other outreach events during 2008 to inform immigrant workers, employers, and immigrant advocacy organizations about their rights and obligations under federal and City laws. The discussions, instructions in adult legal literacy classes, presentations to new citizens, literature, and other presentations explained discrimination based on national origin and citizenship or alienage status. The citywide presentations were conducted in English, Spanish, Creole, and Russian.

Discrimination in Employment
During 2008, CRB began the development and piloting of a new program “Working for Real: Employment Rights and Discrimination in the Workplace.” This program provides workshops throughout the City’s many workforce development and other back-to-work agencies. This anti-discrimination program also provides information and resources for members of the disabled community, individuals with arrest and/or conviction records, and victims of sexual harassment. Recessionary economics and rising unemployment have expanded the need for these workshops at organizations like Goodwill Industries, Federation of Employment Guidance Services (FEGS), the RITE Career Center, Asian Americans for Equality, YMCA, YWCA, Begin managed programs, to name a few.

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 172 modifications during 2008 through pre-complaint intervention and LEB negotiated an additional 37 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 fitting rooms and bathrooms; widening of aisles; signage, permitting guide dogs in public accommodations; moving several disabled individuals to ground floor apartments, making exit and entry to the building accessible; moving several individuals to an accessible location either permanently or while the elevator was under repair; removal of cart corrals and gates; permitting a disabled tenant to have a washing machine in the apartment; lowering the soap dispensers and door handles in a large store; widening the kitchen and bathroom doors and lowering the kitchen cabinets; and making a City museum code-compliant and accessible. 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 31 City schools and 19 youth centers, conducting 348 sessions and teaching over 7,309 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 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 experience benefits from the program. Approximately 20 students per school participate in the Peer Mediation Training Program. The Commission revised and published Talk it Over: A Peer Mediator’s Guide to assist the student mediators with the mediation process.

During the 2007–2008 school year, 210 high school students from 13 schools throughout the City graduated from the Peer Mediation Training Program.

Mortgage Counseling and Predatory Loan Prevention
The Commission’s 5 trained counselors are assigned to each of the Commission’s boroughbased Community Service Centers. The Commission is a HUD-certified Housing Counseling Agency, receiving most of its clients from HUD when those individuals are behind in their mortgage payments and their homeownership is in jeopardy.

CRB staff members conduct outreach and counseling services to address the community instability created by predatory lending practices. These 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 1,021 counseling sessions for 305 homeowners facing foreclosure and also conducted 5 workshops, advising people about the services the Commission provides.

The Commission continued its aggressive outreach campaign to complement its counseling services. Staff members distribute information and helpful resources, including consumer and banking information. The Commission also participates in homeownership seminars and predatory lending workshops in communities vulnerable 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 neighborhood stability in areas undergoing ethnic change. In 2008, CRB delivered 88 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. In 2008, CRB was awarded grant funding to support the development of an interface between the Commission’s mortgage counseling files in their Client Management System and HUD’s (U.S. Housing and Urban Development) Client Activity Reporting System. This application will allow the Commission to send its client files over the internet to HUD for tracking and analysis of regional data in reports to Congress.

By year-end, CRB staff exceeded their 2007 productivity by over 50% -- delivering 88,438 units of service to individuals throughout the five boroughs.

The Commission’s educational programs and services were supplemented in 2008 with funding by: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices; NYS Archives and Records Administration; JPMorgan Chase; the Tiger Baron Foundation; and the Christopher Reeve Foundation.

CRB Staff
The Community Relations Bureau consists of 33 program and field staff and 5 support staff members.