Editor’s note: Newton Fair Housing Committee Chair Esther Schlorholtz, quoted in this story, is the wife of Newton Beacon Board of Directors member Joe Hunter.

A new study led by Paige Stopperich, a clinical fellow at Suffolk Law School, shows that housing discrimination may still be a problem in the MetroWest area, including Newton.

In her Friday email updates to the community, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller mentioned the study in which trained volunteers—of various racial backgrounds, income levels, and family circumstances—pretended to be looking for apartments. The study had concerning findings.

The volunteers conducted the experiment 134 times in the 13 communities in the MetroWest Home Consortium (a partnership that makes communities eligible for federal affordable housing block grants). Most of the communities, including Newton, had 10 experiments conducted in each. Some had 11, and one had nine.

“Our understanding is that evidence of discrimination was found in 2 of the 10 tests in Newton,” Fuller noted.

And while the numbers may be concerning, they show marked improvement over studies done in the past.

Race and income

Of those 134 visits, 65 looked for discrimination based on race, and 69 looked for discrimination based on source of income.

More than 20 percent of tests done for racial discrimination saw racial discrimination, according to the study. Nearly 60 percent saw none, and 20 percent were inconclusive.

About 35 percent of the tests done for income discrimination (whether the prospective tenant has a high-paying job, or is low-income, or uses subsidized housing funds like Section 8) came back showing discrimination, while 40 percent did not and 24 percent were inconclusive.

In Newton, one test showed racial discrimination, and one test showed income discrimination.

Natick saw the most cases of alleged discrimination based on income (three cases out of 11 tests), while Brookline saw the most cases of alleged discrimination based on race (three cases out of 10 tests).

This chart shows how many discrimination cases involving race and source of income emerged in a new study of unfair housing practices in the MetroWest region. Courtesy of Suffolk Law School

Getting better

Esther Schlorholtz, chair of Newton’s Fair Housing Committee, said the test results are actually a big sign of improvement over the past.

That committee commissioned a similar study in 2005, for just Newton. And that, as well as other studies, showed a 50 percent discrimination rate for things like race, income and disability.

So, she wasn’t shocked to see a new study showing discrimination happening.

“What I’m surprised about, actually, is that, this testing, so many years later, in Newton at least, showed significant progress,” Schlorholtz said. “But I’m not surprised that in all of those communities there was some kind of discrimination found.”

What troubles Schlorholtz is that many of the alleged discrimination instances involved large real estate broker companies, some with more than 100 agents working.

“One of them had over 1,000 agents,” she said.

What happens now?

According to the new study, test results and evidence  is sent to the Attorney General’s Office, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to take appropriate action. That wasn’t happening in 2005.

“Now they are actually following up on enforcement,” Schlorholtz said.

Since the 2005 study, Newton’s Fair Housing Committee has held multiple training sessions for real estate professionals, landlords and tenants. And there’s another training slated for next month.

“The first time we did it, we had 100 attendees,” Schlorholtz said. “And it is so interesting to have people be able to ask questions and be able to get the responses from the attorneys and be able to say, ‘Oh I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to do this.’”

This chart shows the type of real estate provider cited for discrimination in a new study. Courtesy of Suffolk Law School

For example, she said, many real estate professionals have negative views of Section 8 and state subsidized housing programs because of the bureaucracy involved.

But landlords are guaranteed to get their rent, and if a tenant loses their job, they only have to pay a portion of their rent and the subsidized program pays the rest.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many renters lost their jobs, landlords with Section 8 housing got almost 100 percent of their money.

“So actually, those landlords, especially the large landlords, were really happy, because (although) all these people had lost their jobs, they got paid throughout,” she said.

Schlorholtz said she would like to see more enforcement of fair housing laws, more training opportunities for anyone involved with real estate and more real estate firms developing strong policies against housing discrimination.

The 2025 study can be read online.

Representatives from the MetroWest Home Consortium and Housing Discrimination Testing Program will hold two community meetings this month to present the findings and discuss the results and what they mean. The first will be Feb. 19 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Zoom, and the second will be in-person at the Newton Free Library on Feb. 26, also from 5:30 to 7 p.m.