
Last week, several civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against the Department of Housing and Urban Development and its leader, Ben Carson, over the Trump administration’s decisions to delay an Obama-era fair housing rule. Now the state of New York has joined the lawsuit, HousingWire staffer Ben Lane reports.
The rule at the center of the lawsuit – 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.
Earlier this year HUD said it planned to delay implementing the rule for one year, a move that fair housing advocates say is tantamount to repealing the rule altogether, Lane writes.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who served as HUD secretary from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, announced Monday that New York is joining the fair housing advocates’ lawsuit against the Trump administration.
“As a former HUD Secretary, it is unconscionable to me that the agency entrusted to protect against housing discrimination is abdicating its responsibility, and New York will not stand by and allow the federal government to undo decades of progress in housing rights,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The right to rent or buy housing free from discrimination is fundamental under the law, and we must do everything in our power to protect those rights and fight segregation in our communities.”
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