PRRAC Update (June 22, 2017): Regulatory havoc continues

Responding to regulatory “reform”:  We submitted coalition comments in response to a HUD Notice titled “Reducing Regulatory Burden; Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda”, seeking suggestions for regulations to eliminate or streamline, pursuant to two Trump Administration Executive Orders.  Our comments pointed out, inter alia, that HUD was not legally authorized to eliminate rules necessary to implement the Fair Housing Act.  Some of our sister organizations also posted excellent comments – see some of these collected here. The next stop on this “regulatory reform” journey is the Department of Education, which published a near- identical notice this morning – comments due in sixty days.

Housing and health :  PRRAC is participating in ChangeLab Solutions’ “Block Project,” an initiative to further explore the relationships between health and housing in the context of selected cities and neighborhoods.  This week, the project is launching “Porch Light Debates,” multi-commentator discussions of health-housing policy initiatives in four cities.

Congratulations to the plaintiffs’ legal team in Sheff v. O’Neill for successfully resisting the state’s efforts to roll back progress in the still-expanding two-way interdistrict school integration remedy in the Greater Hartford region.  PRRAC works with the “Sheff Movement” parent and community coalition in Hartford, which organizes across city and suburban lines to advance school integration for all children in the region.