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QUESTION
How does the Commission on Human Rights handle inquiries and complaints, and how many staff members are involved in the process?
0:58:02
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4 min
The Commission on Human Rights receives around 12,000 inquiries annually, leading to 3 to 500 complaints, with 54 staff members supporting the process, including attorneys and interventionists.
- Approximately 6,100 disability inquiries received last year, with significant focus on housing accommodations and employment.
- A total of 12,000 inquiries are received yearly, from which 3 to 500 complaints are filed for further action.
- Case resolution times vary greatly, with some being solvable in a day and others taking up to three years.
- The Law Enforcement Bureau consists of 54 staff members, including 10 to 15 attorneys who serve through the life of a case, and interventionists who help with precomplaint interventions.
Julie Menin
0:58:02
For CCHR, I question, in terms of the commission's dual mandate, and I'm just going directly from your testimony.
0:58:10
The human rights laws, anti discrimination provisions that operate to address disparities with a focus on employment and housing.
0:58:19
Can you talk about how many cases you're receiving, how many complaints in that area, and how many cases you're able to close?
JoAnn Kamuf Ward
0:58:29
Yeah.
0:58:30
So first on the case and the inquiry numbers that you asked about, before.
0:58:35
I want to bring those into the testimony.
0:58:38
So we had and this is from last year.
0:58:44
Yep.
0:58:44
At fiscal year 23, the number of disability inquiries we had was about 6 100, with 200 of those in the employment space.
0:58:55
A lot of the disability work is in housing, reasonable accommodations and accessibility.
0:59:00
There were about 200 in the gender space with a vast majority of those also in employment, and that can range from pregnancy, lactation accommodations to differential treatment, hospital work environment, sexual harassment, So for for housing claims, I am just gonna need to pull up our our annual report to be able to have the numbers in in front of in front of me, but we I I can say, in general, we get about 12,000 inquiries a year to our law enforcement bureau.
0:59:35
And we file in the arena of, like, 3 to 500 complaints coming out of that.
0:59:45
Again, a lot of things that come to us are a sometimes non jurisdictional.
0:59:51
Sometimes people don't wanna move forward with the claim.
0:59:53
Sometimes it's best referred to to someone else, but that's kind of the the universe of and and those numbers have been growing over over time.
1:00:03
And in terms of cases closed, I think there is no average There's no I mean, I could give you an average number.
1:00:10
I don't think it's very helpful because the the scope of the cases is so different.
1:00:15
So someone might come to us and they are seeking a ramp in their housing, and someone might come to us and they're seeking a pregnancy accommodation.
1:00:24
One of those can be resolved probably in a day.
1:00:27
1 of those can take 3 years.
1:00:29
So So that there's a wide array of factors I go into each case.
1:00:35
I'm about to drop something.
1:00:37
But the the other piece I would say is that in addition to filing complaints, something that our law enforcement bureau does in the case of disability often, but also in source of income as we have a process called precomplaint interventions.
1:00:50
So if something comes to us and it's a matter that if we can solve it in 30 days or 2 weeks, it's gonna make a tangible difference to someone.
1:00:59
We route that through a fast track process so that they don't have to wait for the to file a complaint.
1:01:06
Meet with an attorney.
1:01:07
So we have interventionists that sort of that take some of the cases.
1:01:11
This is especially true in reasonable accommodation and SOI.
1:01:14
When we know someone is ghosted in an apartment is gonna be lost soon.
1:01:18
So we we prioritize those cases.
1:01:20
I and I say we it's our law enforcement bureau.
1:01:23
I'm not the one doing that work.
1:01:24
Yeah.
Julie Menin
1:01:25
And how many investigators do you have on staff right now?
JoAnn Kamuf Ward
1:01:31
So that's a good question.
1:01:33
Our law enforcement bureau currently has 54 staff.
1:01:38
I there are our attorneys serve through the life of a case.
1:01:44
So you are like, you do the intake, you do the investigation, and you stay with the person who has filed that complaint.
1:01:51
So our attorneys are our investigators.
1:01:53
So we have, I want to say, in the realm of 10 to 15 attorneys.
1:02:01
I think that's correct currently, but we have interventionists that are also part of the law enforcement team AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF WHO DO SOME OF THE INTACES AND THE EARLIER PROCESS OF COMPLAINTS.