Local housing officials from Democratic and Republican counties saw the rule as a rigid and costly directive; many were confused about how to meet their complex requirements.
“Our biggest problem with this is that a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate,” said Jennifer Eby, manager of community services and resources for Douglas County, a Denver suburb. “It was, from our perspective, very heavy.”
Resistance to the rule suggests that Biden will face obstacles from even some of his own allies over the most dramatic plans for his presidency, which include everything from reviewing environmental regulations to reviving the union movement.
However, this case reaches a critical point, because the rate of home ownership for blacks and Hispanics is so low and minorities are often relegated to precarious housing. The Affirmatively Promoting Fair Housing rule was intended to help remedy that, and Trump’s opposition to it has sparked accusations of racism.
The rule would have required local jurisdictions to actively monitor and address patterns of poverty and segregation with a checklist of 92 questions – or else they would lose access to federal housing funds.
Critics condemned the lawsuit as costly and expensive, an argument made by Trump’s Secretary for Urban Development and Housing, Ben Carson – the only black member of his cabinet – when he rescinded the rule. But local government officials and public housing officials were also among the claimants.
Although Trump framed the issue as a Democratic plan to force low-income housing down the throats of suburban residents, critics’ concerns about the rule largely fall under two general complaints: that the Washington, DC directive is too strict to allow for local contributions and differences between jurisdictions, and that it is so complicated that compliance often requires outside help.
Several left-wing cities, including Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minnesota, have complained about the need to hire expensive consultants to deal with the complex requirements of the rule.
Housing officials in other states have expressed similar concerns about the top-down approach. A group representing more than 75 public housing authorities in California he criticized the “highly prescriptive framework” of the original rule in a public comment on a proposal to recast the rule.
“There was also no additional funding that was put into it,” said Eby. “So there is a lot of extra analysis to be done, a lot of work to be done and no new funding to do it. When that happens, you are essentially taking money from services ”.
Eby is also concerned about the list of “contributing factors” to housing segregation that the rule requires local jurisdictions to track and advance treatment. On the one hand, she said, the criteria for making progress were unclear. But the factors themselves are also broad, she said.
“In many ways, the contributing factors that they are asking communities to look at are not necessarily vectors that are under their control,” she said, pointing to factors like transportation and school quality.
Finally, Douglas County Commissioners decided that the possible penalties and compliance charges were not worth it. In 2016, the county withdrew from the HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program – giving up about $ 750,000 a year in federal funding – as a result of concerns about giving up control over local decision-making, despite passing easily. in previous fair housing assessments.
Biden’s transition website lists racial equity as one of the four main issues he will focus on immediately – alongside the violent pandemic, economic collapse and climate change. And housing advocates who have put pressure on Biden’s HUD landing team say they are confident that the new government believes that restoring the 2015 rule is an urgent priority. The Biden transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Confusion about the rule – and how it will be reinstated – occurs when the rate of ownership of blacks is already about 30 points below that of whites. The protracted effects of the economic crisis can make it even broader, exacerbating the longstanding inequalities caused by decades of government-led segregation.
“Blacks and Latinos are more likely to live in health deserts with fewer health facilities, dentists and primary care physicians,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. The 2015 rule “was designed to correct all of these structural problems. And instead of imposing AFFH, Trump eviscerated it. “
The data and assessment tools incorporated into Obama’s original rule may need to be “updated,” she said, but the regulation itself is critical to dealing with systemic racism.
“It was clear from day one that the Trump administration did not understand fair housing, and I personally tried to educate the HUD leadership on fair housing issues,” added Rice.
Carson suspended regulation in 2018 before replacing it with a weaker version in July. As the 2015 rule was already in the books, the new government can simply revoke the replacement regulation and revert to the original, without having to go through the long process of enacting a new rule.
The difficult part will be to implement it. Critics emphasized that they support the rule’s objectives – they just want something viable.
The HUD in 2018 pulled out a key computer tool that local governments should use to analyze patterns of segregation, concentrated poverty, residential health risks and disparities in access to things like transportation, schools and employment opportunities. They should use this data to draft a “Fair Housing Assessment” plan addressing discriminatory barriers, which they would then send to HUD.
Many areas had problems with the tool. For the 49 jurisdictions in the first group to submit fair housing assessment plans between October 2016 and December 2017, only 37 percent were initially accepted, according to the HUD. While another 28% of the plans were accepted after jurisdictions changed them with HUD technical assistance, 35% were rejected.
Local public housing agencies expected the HUD to simplify and improve the tool, which will need to be revived and updated.
“The new administration definitely needs to know what was done to destroy this,” said Marla Newman, director of community development in Winston-Salem, NC
Newman said that Winston-Salem was “one of the few jurisdictions that actually had a plan approved” after hiring a consultant to help design it. The HUD was making progress on adjusting the rule to make it more accessible before the Trump administration withdrew it, she said.
“We were starting to get good mapping tools – we were really on the way to a good place – and we need to pick up where the [Obama] administration has been disrupted ”with the rule, Newman said.
In the meantime, many jurisdictions will have to disburse money that they can hardly spend on consultants to take advantage of desperately needed federal housing funds.
“The stakes on developing an acceptable AFFH are high, as jurisdictions face a reduction in funding if they fail,” the Seattle Housing Authority told HUD in 2018, urging the agency to consider providing support to housing agencies. and “taking into account the size of the PHA in its expectations and requirements. “
The National Community Development Association, a bipartisan non-profit organization that represents more than 400 local government agencies, also criticized the “standardized approach” of the original rule in a public comment sent in March.
It is a problem “for small towns that receive a small amount of [block grant] funding every year, ”said the association’s executive director, Vicki Watson. “There are some cities that receive less than $ 500,000 a year, but have the same requirements as New York or San Francisco – there’s a disconnect there.”
“We strongly support the promotion of fair housing, but we think it should be more flexible,” she added. “There just needs to be more funding and more flexibility, especially for smaller cities.”