The bill, the full text of which is available here, makes clear that fair housing organizations are able to act as "private attorney generals," able to bring suit on its own behalf either when the organization's tester has been deprived of truthful information because of protected class status, or when the organization expends funds to uncover discrimination. Under the law, the organization is not required to demonstrate that the funds expended had been "diverted" from other organizational purposes, thereby focusing judicial inquiry on whether housing discrimination has been proved, not on whether the organization has jumped through a judicially-invented "diversion of resources" hoop.
Among other notable features:
› the bill rejects recent judicial decisions which have purported to exclude discriminatory harassment of tenants in occupancy from the coverage of the federal Fair Housing Act.
› the bill makes clear that all entities (public and private) are constrained from discriminating either as a matter of intent or impact;
› the bill rejects the bizarrely narrow interpretation of New York’s highest court on the meaning of “marital status” (that court doesn’t consider intentional discrimination against unmarried couples to fall within the meaning of the proscription); and
› the bill rejects the Second Circuit's Salute decision under the court had stripped people with disabilities of the right to get reasonable accommodations characterized by the court as "economic accommodations."