Fwd: All About AFFH and fighting against HUD
Rachell Hall
From: Linda Jun <li...@ourfinancialsecurity.org>
Date: Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: All About AFFH and fighting against HUD
To: Porter McConnell <por...@ourfinancialsecurity.org>
Hi everyone,You are receiving this email because you participated in our disparate impact webinar last fall, and we wanted to make sure you were aware of another ongoing attack on fair housing. Ben Carson's HUD has a new proposal to kill the part of the Fair Housing Act that requires state & local governments to expand housing opportunity and fight segregation and inequality.
Individuals and organizations can submit comments. It would be great to give them an earful on this horrible racist proposal.
Click here to submit a pre-formulated comment, which you can personalize, and which can be from either an individual or an organization. If you are in DC, you can also join the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the National Housing Law Project for their comment party tonight!
Please also note that there's a sign-on letter coming, for another way to be in solidarity at this awful moment.
Check out this site our partners built to learn more and watch an explainer video, and read more about the details of this horrible proposal below.
Comments are due March 16, so there’s still time to make our voices heard!
In Solidarity,
Linda and Porter
What is Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)?
The Fair Housing Act (FHA) contains a duty to affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH), recognizing that land use, community development, zoning, and other policies have either been explicitly or indirectly discriminatory, and leading to the segregation and exclusion of communities of color. AFFH requires all recipients (i.e. state and local governments, etc.) of federal funding to take affirmative steps to expand housing opportunities in their communities, and to alleviate historical patterns of discrimination and exclusion in housing.
In 2015, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) finalized an AFFH rule that provides jurisdictions with the tools, guidance, and flexibility they need to identify and eliminate barriers to fair housing and expand affordable housing opportunities for people of color and other protected groups in their communities. It clarified and defined what the responsibilities are to meet AFFH requirements by equipping communities with local decision-making power, requiring community participation, and supporting local housing solutions.
What is Ben Carson doing to destroy it?
The Trump Administration's HUD suspended the AFFH rule from going into effect, and then in January 2020 proposed their own disastrous rule, which is what we are asking you to comment on today.
HUD’s new proposal does not even mention segregation, and entirely eliminates the consideration of race, national origin, families with children, or other protected classes in the evaluation of whether a locality is meeting its AFFH obligations.
The proposal would leave people of color, women, people with disabilities, and other families already harmed by unfair and unequal housing policies or practices at a further disadvantage in the housing market while providing no meaningful impact on the supply of affordable housing in a community (the proposal conflates affordable housing and fair housing and does nothing for either). While they are saying they are freeing up the market to create affordable housing, the real message here is that we should let Trump and his buddies build and play whenever and however they want. The proposal allows them to continue concentrating wealth for themselves at the expense of everyday folks who are suffering because of the connection between historically discriminatory policies, rapidly rising housing prices, and stagnant wages.
What can I do?
The HUD comment deadline on this disastrous new rule is March 16th. Click here to submit a comment, which you can personalize, and which can be from either an individual or an organization. You can also keep an eye out for an organizational sign-on letter that’s coming, for another way to be in solidarity at this awful moment.
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