The Department of Housing and Urban Development has undone a key element of the Obama-era fair housing rule, saying that it hurt local governments rather than helping them lessen inequities.
The agency, led by Ben Carson, announced Friday evening that it was withdrawing the assessment tool by which cities and counties are supposed to identify housing discrimination and other problems faced by minorities and other groups.
In a press release, HUD said that the tool was “confusing, difficult to use, and frequently produced unacceptable assessments.”
The tool is the centerpiece of the rule known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, finalized in 2015. The Obama administration wrote the rule to enforce a section of the 1968 Fair Housing Act that requires cities to proactively address disparities suffered by protected groups.
Proponents viewed the rule as a way for the federal government, which gives out funds to cities and counties, to promote fairness and reduce the effects of past and ongoing discrimination.
But conservative critics, including Carson, have argued that it represents an unwarranted intrusion of federal government influence into local zoning matters.
“We believe in furthering fair housing choice in our neighborhoods, but we have to help, not hinder those who have to put our rules into practice,” said Anna Maria Farías, HUD’s assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity.
The agency said that it is still committed to the underlying requirement that localities with HUD funding proactively promote fair housing, and that it would conduct listening sessions and seek public comment on alternative ways of enforcing that stricture.
In January, Carson’s HUD had announced a delay to the rule’s deadline. Friday’s announcement supersedes that move, because now localities don’t have to go through the process laid out by the Obama administration.
The Obama version of the rule would have required cities and counties to use the tool, and data provided by the federal government, to spell out exactly which kinds of disparities their citizens faced. For example, if minorities lived in areas that lack public transit and other services, that would be identified as a problem to be fixed. If the government failed to lay out a plan to address that problem, through re-zoning, transit, or other means, it could, in theory, face the loss of HUD funds.
Shortly after the rule was introduced, Carson derided it as “government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality.”
Last summer, the former neurosurgeon indicated his plans to reinterpret the rule to cut down on “extra manipulation and cost.”
