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Administration lays out new rules to encourage neighborhood integration
| 2015-Jul-08 | By: Barry Shatzman |
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has issued a new set of rules to make it easier for cities to become more racially integrated, and to make it harder for them to encourage segregation.
The 1968 Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination, but it also requires cities to work toward becoming integrated. Integrated cities provide better opportunities for education, work, and transportation for all residents.
One of the ways HUD works is to provide money for communities to build affordable housing. Without HUD enforcement, communities often place that housing in areas where there already is a concentration of poverty. HUD effectively had stopped enforcing this in the 1970s.
The new rules, called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), provide data to communities so they can see areas where poverty is concentrated. They require communities to accurately report to HUD where they are providing new affordable housing. They also allow HUD to withhold funding from projects that thwart diversity.
For an in-depth description of the status of neighborhood segregation and its effects, read this Washington Post article.
To read the new HUD rules and rationale, visit www.huduser.gov/portal/affht_pt.html#final-rule.
Supreme Court: Discrimination doesn't need to be intentional
| 2015-Jun-25 | By: Barry Shatzman |
The Supreme Court ruled that housing policies can violate the 1968 Fair Housing Act if they result in discrimination - even if the effects are unintentional.
Among the law's provisions, it states that it is unlawful...
To refuse to sell or rent after the making of a bona fide offer, or to refuse to negotiate for the sale or rental of, or otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin.
The court ruled that the phrase otherwise make unavailable or deny means that the results of a policy can be taken into account, without a need to show any intent - referred to as disparate impact.
The case stems from criteria used by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs in awarding federal tax credits to developers of low-income housing. The criteria resulted in perpetuating segregated communities.
For more, read the New York Times story.
Click here to read our explanation of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project.