[JURIST] A New York state housing group claimed in a report [advocacy report, PDF] released Monday that nearly half of the real estate agencies in New York City's northern suburbs treated blacks and Hispanics unfairly, according to recent tests. The federal Fair Housing Act [official site] passed in 1968 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and handicap or disability. The Westchester Residential Opportunities [advocacy site] says that prospective minority renters were shown systematically different apartments than white prospective renters or even not shown apartments at all, a practice known as "steering". The group is filing complaints about seven agencies with the New York Attorney General and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. AP has more.