Earlier this year, the Trump administration moved to delay an Obama-era fair housing rule, much to the dismay of civil rights, housing, and community development organizations. Now, HousingWire staffer Ben Lane reports, three groups have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Ben Carson.
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule requires cities and towns that receive federal funding to examine local housing patterns for racial bias and design a plan to address any measurable bias, Lane explains.
In January, Carson said that HUD intended to delay the rule by one year, prompting 76 organizations to say that the delay effectively gutted the rule. According to the groups that filed the suit - the National Fair Housing Alliance, Texas Appleseed, and Texas Low Income Housing Information Service – HUD of unlawfully suspended the AFFH rule, thereby effectively removing civil rights oversight of as much as $5.5 billion per year until 2024 or later for almost 1,000 jurisdictions.
But, when announcing the delay, HUD stated that the rule wasn’t working as intended in the early stages.
“Early in this administration, HUD embarked upon a top-to-bottom review of the department’s rules and regulations. As part of this regulatory review, HUD asked the public to offer comment on those rules that might be excessively burdensome or unclear,” HUD’s announcement stated.
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