February 22, 2024
The Honorable Secretary Marcia Fudge
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20410
Dear Secretary Fudge,
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Fair Housing and Lending Task Force, we write to share our 2024 priorities for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). We applaud the steps that HUD has taken in the last three years to advance fair housing opportunities and create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all, including by reinstating HUD’s discriminatory effects rule and investing in fair housing enforcement. We were also pleased to see the Administration’s commitment to address housing insecurity, particularly for marginalized communities, as articulated in the Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights.1 In 1he next several months, we urge HUD to continue this important work by finalizing additional rules and guidance in key areas, including: affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH); criminal history eligibility restrictions; tenant screening; Section 8 Management Assessment Program; source of income discrimination; implementation of the Violence Against Women Act (VA WA); and enhanced voucher protections. While the list that follows does not reflect all of the priorities of our member organizations, it highlights issues that are at the top of 1he coalition’s agenda.
I. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
We applaud HUD on the steps that it has taken to finalize a new AFFH rule. The proposed rule applies lessons learned from the implementation of the Obama Administration’s 2015 AFFH rule and positions both HUD and its grantees to realize the Fair Housing Act’s (FHA) promise of inclusive communities free from discrimination. Since HUD sent a final rule to 1he Office of Management and Budget for review before finalization and publication, now is a critical time for the Department to focus its energy and resources on the development of necessary sub-regulatory resources and a plan for the rollout of technical assistance and training.
In particular, as it did in conjunction with its 1995 and 2015 rules, HUD should develop and disseminate written guidebooks that explain in detail how program participants can engage in effective fair housing planning. Instead of just one guidebook, HUD should recognize the unique contexts in which its different types of program participants operate and draft separate guidebooks for states, lo cal governments, and public housing agencies (PHAs ), respectively. These guidebooks can and should have some overlapping content, but recognize that the levels of control and influence that each category of program participant has over different policy domains vary. For instance, a guidebook for PHAs would include greater detail on the ways in which inadequate Housing Choice Voucher payment standards and restrictions on portability can contribute to segregation and limit access to opportunity, while a guide book for local governments may address those issues at a higher level but include greater depth on how to effectively analyze the role of land use and zoning regulations. These tailored guidebooks will not only be useful to program participants, but also to civil rights, fair housing, and grassroots organizing groups seeking to mobilize residents to engage in the AFFH rule’s mandated community participation process for the development off air housing plans. Residents are more likely to be motivated to engage when they understand what is at stake in the planning process, and the recommendations that they urge their program participants to adopt are more likely to align with the purposes behind the AFFH mandate under those circumstances.
Training and technical assistance will also be essential to the successful rollout of a new AFFH rule. As with the written guidance, we ask that HUD develop training curricula that are tailored to the circumstances of different categories of program participants. Additionally, HUD should consider developing different training curricula for program participants operating at different scales (smaller jurisdictions versus larger ones) and in different contexts (urban versus suburban versus rural). HUD should train program participants (both states and counties) whose analysis includes places where other units of general local government are subrecipients on how to use their authority and influence to ensure that their sub recipients comply with the AFFH mandate.
With respect to technical assistance, HUD should strive to strike an appropriate balance between technical assistance that is oriented towards ensuring that the plans that program participants initially submit are as strong as possible and technical assistance that helps guide program participants to a state of compliance following the initial submission of an unacceptable plan. Achieving this balance may mean a greater frontloading of technical assistance than occurred following publication of the 2015 rule, when some program participants were not able to access substantial technical assistance until their first submissions were passed back by HUD.
HUD should provide training and technical assistance to fair housing organizations, grassroots community organizing groups, and groups that represent individuals and communities with protected characteristics, in addition to program participants. By making those resources available to stakeholders, HUD would reinforce to program participants that community stakeholders are integral to the fair housing planning process and that the Department is serious about its commitment to community participation. It would also likely improve the quantity and quality of community engagement by demystifying what can appear to be a complex and arcane process. With respect to the implementation of the 2015 rule, HUD’s training and technical assistance resources were generally not available to community stakeholders, Link to the letter
1 WHITE HOUSE DOMESTIC POL ‘y COUNCIL AND NAT’L ECON. COUNCIL, BLUEPRINT FOR A RENTERS BILL OF RIGHTS (2023), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/White-HouseBlueprint-for-a-Renters-Bill-of-Rights.pdf (RENTERS BILL OF RIGHTS).
