A little inside baseball in housing law and policy today. Last week, a federal judge in Washington, DC dismissed a lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) in which the plaintiffs (various housing advocates) challenged how HUD enforces one type of fair housing law. In the case, the court determined that the plaintiffs were unable to prove they were harmed by a Trump Administration decision to effectively suspend a rule from the Obama Administration which required communities to address certain type of housing discrimination.
In the complaint, various housing advocates asserted that HUD (through Secretary Ben Carson) had dismantled a May 2015 decision which included use of a computer assessment tool that allowed HUD to oversee whether communities complied with what is known as the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule. The 2015 Rule, which took six years to develop, was hoped to force communities to comply with a provision in the Fair Housing Act that mandates local governments use federal money to combat segregation in residential housing. The rule did this by requiring more than 1,200 local communities which receive federal funds to draft plans to desegregate residential housing or risk losing the federal money. The computer assessment tool was developed to analyze housing patterns and poverty as well as differences in jobs, school, and transportation. Once these facts were developed, the 2015 Rule required local governments to address the issues.
In dismissing the complaint, the court concluded it could not “micromanage [HUD’s] choices on program implementation” and that HUD was entitled to withdraw the Obama-era Rule. In a statement following dismissal of the case, HUD noted it “remains deeply committed to the Fair Housing Act and will continue to live up to the spirit and letter of the law” and HUD further believed the computer model was “confusing, difficult to use, contained errors and required an unsustainable level of technical assistance.” HUD stated it will “craft a new, fairer rule that creates choices for quality housing across all communities.”
The takeaway: Affordable housing advocates hoped to use the 2015 Rule as a way to force local governments to act in situations where certain low income housing are believed to have substandard health and/or safety concerns for the families forced to reside there. Those efforts will continue, but not with the computer assessment tool.
Just A Thought.
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