�E·R·A·S·E

New York Civil Rights Organization

RACISM

V. Elaine Gross, Founder and President Emerita

25 Years Addressing Systemic Racism

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• Founded on Long Island in 2001

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• Focused on identifying and addressing historical and ongoing structural racism, especially as reflected in housing and public-school education inequities

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• On Long Island, in New York State, and in federal policy.

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Our Tools

• ERASE Racism utilizes six key tools central to our work:

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• Fact-based Research – exposing racial inequities

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• Educating and Engaging Stakeholders to Recognize and Address Structural Racism and its Consequences – including government leaders, school educators & administrators, students, and members of the public

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• Programmatic Initiatives – in housing and public-school education

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• Litigation – against rental apartment discrimination on Long Island

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• Advocacy – promoting policies to address racial disparities

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• Media Coverage – informing the public and building understanding.

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Our Impact

Our impact, utilizing the tools above, is tracked and measured using metrics: number of impact events, people reached, outcomes (policy, practice and law changes), and influencing others to act. Educational/engagement impact events include:

• Training & Workshops

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• Programmatic Initiatives & Campaign Actions

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• Educational Presentations & Events

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• Policy & Practice Changes

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• Media Coverage & In-House Communication

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• Research & Strategic Tools

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Our Impact

~Continued~

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We have evaluated our impact by considering the following questions, and this PowerPoint presentation shares information about our successes:

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• How successful are we at acquiring knowledge, through fact-based research, that aids our efforts to lessen and eliminate barriers to racial equity? How effective are our efforts to share this knowledge with stakeholders via training/workshops, programs/campaigns, presentations/events, media/communications, and reports?

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• To what extent do the outcomes and products generated from our programmatic initiatives (adults and youth), advocacy campaigns, and media exposure advance our efforts to expand interest and engagement in increasing racial equity?

• What improvements and changes are implemented through our actions and collaborations that shift government practices, policies and laws to lessen racial inequities? How have we inspired others to take action?

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Our Impact

~Continued~

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Knowledged Acquired and Shared

Fact-based Research

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• Landmark research reports such as:
• “Empire State Inequity: A decade of school funding disparity and its effects” (2023)
• “ERASE Racism’s Affordable and Inclusive Housing Tool”

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• Seminal Articles:
• “Denial of Housing to African Americans: Post Slavery Reflections from a Civil rights Advocate”
• “ Discrimination and Local Control”

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Our Impact

~Continued~

• Educational/Engagement Impact Events (Adults and Youth) – January 2024 - May 2025

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• 54,619 people reached
• 230 impact events (see slide 4 for details of impact events)
• 186 media stories
• 34 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion workshops/training – 244 people reached
• 7 housing events – 381 people reached
• 4 youth events – 333 students reached

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Impact Overview

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This is a visualization of the analysis from our Impact Tool. These specific graphs, as well as those in slides 12 and 17, illustrate the educational/engagement events, which are recorded in the tool and used to evaluate our impact.

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Our Impact

~Continued~

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Programmatic Initiatives – Youth Development For Leadership (YDL) Initiative

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• This initiative connects students across racially segregated districts.

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• It provides fact-based, historically grounded understanding of structural racism on Long Island and across the United States – where it came from and how it continues to impact negatively our region and, most especially, our majority Black and Hispanic communities.

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• It inspires students to collaborate to make changes in schools and communities.

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Our Impact

~Continued~

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Programmatic Initiatives – YDL Initiative (continued)

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• 5,500 high school students have participated since 2010 in this effort. Annual offerings now include the following:

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• Long Island Leaders of Tomorrow Conferences – for high school students; one event annually in Nassau County; one in Suffolk - 300 students

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• Student Leaders for Equity Internship – an intensive, six-week, 120-hour, paid internship for 8-15 students each summer

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• Student Task Force – a school-year commitment for about 35 students annually who engage in peer-to-peer learning, learn to lead workshops, and present in a plenary for thousands of US educators at the Reimagining Education Summer Institute at Teachers College of Columbia University.

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Our Impact

Programmatic Initiatives – YDL Initiative (continued)

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• Student Actions

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• Students took their knowledge of educational inequities and testified at a New York State funding formula hearing.

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• Student Task Force members presented their knowledge to 1,200 educators at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

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• A Student Task Force member organized Black History Month events at her school, when none had been planned by staff.

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• A summer intern developed an age-appropriate program for elementary students about structural racism, presented it to the school board and administrators, trained peers, and implemented the program.

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~Continued~

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Youth Development for Leadership Initiative Impact

Our Impact

~Continued~

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• Programmatic Initiatives – Inclusive Housing Initiative

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• We created in 2024 and now lead the Long Island Housing Coalition – composed of 22 organizations (and growing), advancing affordable housing.

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• The Coalition organizes local Housing Summits on Long Island to educate about the need for affordable housing and dispel myths.

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• It advocates for pro-housing solutions, and it seeks to advance affordable housing with local planning and zoning boards.

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Our Impact

~Continued~

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• Litigation Success

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• We conducted paired testing, revealing that landlords refused to rent to Black prospective tenants but wanted to rent to White ones.

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• We filed two related lawsuits, both of which were successful.

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• We inspired Newsday to undertake a major paired-testing investigation (“Long Island Divided,” 2019) that found prospective Black homebuyers were discriminated against 49% of the time, Hispanic home buyers 39%, and Asian homebuyers 19%.

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Our Impact

~Continued~

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• Advocacy

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• We promoted fair housing policy recommendations that were turned into enacted legislation:
• Two Long Island fair housing laws
• Nine New York State fair housing laws.

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• We created and co-led a successful statewide coalition that championed a ban on income bias in housing, which subsequently became New York State law.�
• We developed an Affordable and Inclusive Housing Tool to help developers and planners understand opportunity-indexes of neighborhoods on Long Island

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Click the photo to view the tool in your browser

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Inclusive Housing Initiative Impact

Our Impact

~Continued~

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• Media Coverage

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• We communicate with the public through traditional, digital, social media, and in-house communications.

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• Our media outreach generated nearly 400 stories in 50 traditional outlets and digital media in the past two years.

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• Our nine op-ed articles in that period elevated our thought-leadership in such media outlets as Newsday, The Hill, Long Island Herald, Long Island Advocate, and Innovate Long Island.

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Looking Forward

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• Inclusive Housing Initiative�
• Demonstrate the tool and show how it can be helpful to housing developers (nonprofit and for profit), advocates for housing (community and business), and government officials.�
• Encourage Section 8 providers to educate recipients of Section 8 Certificates about affordable housing options in high-opportunity areas, as measured by our Affordable and Inclusive Housing Tool.�

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Looking Forward

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• Youth Development for Leadership �
• Long Island Leaders of Tomorrow: Set for February 25 and March 6, target of 350 students from 30 different districts�
• STF Goals:
• Increase membership to 35 students
• Create a survey and helpline for students facing discrimination in schools
• Present at 2 separate NYC Conferences about organizing to end school segregation in New York State

Inequality at a Glance on Long Island

• Long Island is one of the 10 most racially segregated US metro regions.

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• Its two counties contain 125 school districts with 125 different budgets.

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• Different school budgets cause waste and inevitably unequal education for students, based on zip codes, which correspond with race.

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• Funding inequities are growing. Intensely segregated districts, which have high concentrations of students with greater needs, are struggling to provide necessary support services due to inequitable funding. If schools were funded equitably, such intensely segregated districts would have received $26,000 more per student in 2021, according to ERASE Racism’s 2023 report “Enough is Enough.”

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Inequality at a Glance on Long Island

~Continued~

• 36% of Long Islanders spend 30% of their income on housing – the second-highest rate in New York State (Long Island Association, 2025).

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• Media home prices are $850,000 in Nassau County and $700,000 in Suffolk County (Newsday, 2025).

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• Fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,586 (Rent Data, 2025).

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• High costs of living combined with concentrated poverty in segregated communities create an increasing wealth gap and a growing opportunity gap among White families and Black and Hispanic ones.

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Inequality at a Glance on Long Island

~Continued~

• These disparities are rooted in Long Island’s physical design:

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• Its exclusionary single-family zoning and lack of affordable multifamily housing

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• Its history of structural racism, including redlining, blockbusting, and racial covenants

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• The fact that race continues to determine one’s zip code, which determines one’s education and access to opportunities including housing.

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ERASE Racism

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• ERASE Racism works to disrupt the consequences and the causes of ongoing structural racism. Our work today is as crucial as ever.

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• These are especially challenging times. We hope that you will consider supporting our innovative and impactful work going forward.

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• It’s vital to realizing an equitable future on Long Island and in New York.

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ERASE Racism www.eraseracismny.org

Elainer Gross, Founder & President Emerita

elaine@eraseracismny.org

516-921-4863 Ext. 12