Long Island Housing Services, Inc.

LIHS' founding objectives are to promote racial and economic integration and equal housing opportunity throughout Long Island; to reduce and eliminate unlawful housing discrimination, to encourage the development of low-income and affordable housing, and to educate and assist the public regarding housing rights and opportunities in the region. Through our dedicated Foreclosure Prevention Program providing counseling and legal services at no charge, we aim to help stabilize the LI economy and local communities by helping struggling homeowners maintain housing, or minimize their loss when modification is not feasible, as many of these were placed at risk of foreclosure through predatory and discriminatory lending practices, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable of residents. Through our rental counseling, we seek to educate tenants as to their rights so that housing conditions and landlord relations will be improved and stabilized.

Strategies to accomplish our objectives include conducting fair housing investigations and testing (rentals, sales, insurance and lending); advocacy to facilitate enforcement/compliance; public/industry education; serving as a clearinghouse for information. We continue to provide Rental counseling and referrals; Legal Services and Counseling for Mortgage Default/Foreclosure Prevention and Mortgage Rescue Modification counseling and reporting. For all of these services and objectives, we engage in vigorous education and outreach efforts to engage those needing services and information to enhance compliance with Fair Housing/Fair Lending goals.

With over fifty (50) years of experience providing unique housing counseling and related services to Long Island residents, LIHS is Long Island's premier, nationally and highly regarded Fair Housing organization. LIHS is a HUD-approved Local Comprehensive Housing Counseling Agency and a HUD-qualified Fair Housing Enforcement Organization. LIHS has a highly trained staff of 19, 3 of whom are fluent in Spanish and we have an additional 25 per diems trained to help with our investigations. Our staff includes housing counselors, attorneys, outreach coordinators, and fair housing investigator/advocates.

We have been able to assist our clients to maintain or obtain their best available housing option through advocacy and litigation, thereby shifting the expectations of the community toward inclusiveness. We have not yet accomplished our ultimate goal: a Long Island that is racially, culturally, and economically inclusive, as much of LI continues to be highly segregated, nor have we seen the creation of an adequate stock of decent and affordable housing.