July 23, 2020:- The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has published a new rule about affirmatively furthering fair housing. It defines what the term “affirmatively further fair housing” actually means and makes it easier for communities to show that they are, indeed, doing just that (i.e. affirmatively furthering fair housing). This new rule replaces an old rule.
2015 rule
In 2015 President Obama’s HUD adopted a regulation that required towns and cities to explain in detail how their zoning, land use laws, and services such as public transportation were affirmatively furthering fair housing. This article from the Atlantic magazine describes the rationale for the Obama administration’s decision.
2018 suspension
In 2018, citing the time-and-cost burdens that the rule-mandated assessment tool put on local governments, HUD Secretary Ben Carson suspended it. Several organizations, including the ACLU and the National Fair Housing Alliance, went to court in an unsuccessful effort keep the 2015 assessment tool in place. According to this ACLU statement, suspending it “puts housing integration in serious jeopardy.”
The State of New York joined the lawsuit. For Governor Cuomo’s announcement about the case click here. For a brief account of New York City’s track record as landlord from the National Apartment Housing Association click here. For another revealing story about affordable housing in New York, click here.
Several other States (including Massachusetts) and some cities (including Oakland, California; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington) signed on to an amicus brief in support of the effort to stop Secretary Carson suspending the 2015 rule. The new rule that Secretary Carson announced would seem to moot the case.
Disparate Impact
The new HUD rule about AFFH does not affect the need for local governments to avoid policies that have a disparate impact on protected classes, a form of discrimination that the Supreme Court of the United States recognized in Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2507 (2015) and that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recognized in Burbank Apartments Tenants Ass’n v. Kargman, 474 Mass. 107, 122 (2016). To browse the SCOTUSblog material on Inclusive Communities click here. For Secretary Carson’s National Review article on the decision and its implications for HUD’s 2013 disparate-impact rule, click here.
My own post from 2013 discusses the disparate-impact rule that HUD had adopted prior to the SCOTUS decision in Inclusive Communities and the rule’s potential to address racially segregated housing and schooling patterns in an around Springfield, Massachusetts. In the 7 years since I wrote that post, I have not heard of any real progress on that front. If you know of some positive steps or have practical suggestions, please share them.
Question
What should State and local government do (or not do) here in Massachusetts in order to reduce racial segregation in housing? If you have success stories or a policy proposal, I would like to hear from you.
Peter Vickery, Esq., 