The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The Future of Fair Housing

• Table of Contents
• About the Commission
• Acknowledgements
• Executive Summary
  • Recommendations
• Introduction
• I. Housing Discrimination and Segregation Continue
• II. Fair Housing Enforcement at HUD is Failing
• III. Fair Housing Enforcement at the Justice Department is Weak
• IV. The Need for Strong Fair Housing Programs
• V. Fair Housing and the Foreclosure Crisis
• VI. Federal Housing Programs
• VII. Fair Housing Obligations of Federal Grantees
• VIII. Regionalism and Fair Housing Enforcement
• IX. The President's Fair Housing Council
• X. Fair Housing Education: A Missing Piece
• XI. The Necessity of Fair Housing Research
• XII. Conclusion

Appendices

• Appendix A: Emerging Fair Housing Issues
• Appendix B: International Disapproval of U.S. Fair Housing Policy
• Appendix C:
  • Letter to Congressional Leaders
  • Letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
• Appendix D: Commission Witnesses and Staff

Fair Housing Obligations of Federal Grantees

The current federal system for ensuring fair housing compliance by state and local recipients of housing assistance has failed. HUD only requires that communities receiving federal funds "certify" to their funding agency that a jurisdiction is affirmatively furthering fair housing. HUD requires no evidence that anything is actually being done as a condition of funding and it does not take adverse action if jurisdictions are directly involved in discriminatory actions or fail to affirmatively further fair housing.

Communities that receive CDBG funds, for example, are currently required to prepare an "Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice" (an "AI") that is part of a Consolidated Plan.

Under the law, this means that the jurisdiction must conduct an analysis of housing patterns and practices to identify impediments to fair housing choice within the jurisdiction. A jurisdiction must then create a plan to eliminate the impediments.^[243] HUD does not require that AIs be reviewed or approved by HUD as a condition of funding and there are no HUD regulations that identify what must be included in an AI, not even a requirement that efforts be made to reduce existing segregation, consider residential living patterns in the placement of new housing, or promote fair housing choice or inclusivity.

AIs in general should examine both government practices and private market practices to identify possible impediments to fair housing. They should require testing to examine whether or not there are forms of housing discrimination occurring in a jurisdiction.^[244] The plan to implement an AI must include actions that will overcome the identified impediments.

The AI, or a similar structure, must be required, and reformed, through regulations to contain a genuine examination of barriers to fair housing—whether government induced or industry induced—and a meaningful strategy to remove those barriers. It must include a strong fair housing presence, including meaningful participation by fair housing offices and organizations.^[245]

Private fair housing groups, unquestionably knowledgeable about fair housing concerns in their communities and ready, willing, and able to undertake participation in a meaningful process to identify and correct impediments to fair housing, report considerable frustration in trying to advance fair housing principles in local communities under the current system.^[246] Many communities were described as having significant issues of segregation, discrimination, and exclusion, including inadequate or inaccessible housing for people with disabilities, persistent racial or ethnic segregation, inadequate communication services for persons with limited English proficiency, lending discrimination targeted at communities of color, discrimination against families with children, and other barriers to fair housing choice. The National Fair Housing Alliance estimates that less than 10 percent of the approximately 1,100 CDBG entitlement jurisdictions in the country actually have programs that really address fair housing concerns in their communities.^[247]

One Commission witness, William Tisdale , described the approach of West Allis, Wisconsin:

The Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, for example, claims to affirmatively further fair housing by having a Fair Housing Board that, amongst its duties, is charged with investigating and adjudicating complaints of illegal housing discrimination. Yet, this Board meets once a year for a few minutes, at most, and Board members have publicly stated they had never seen or received copies of the West Allis fair housing ordinance. Unfortunately, HUD has imposed no sanctions on the West Allis CDBG program. What type of remedy or redress can a victim of housing discrimination expect to receive from filing a complaint with this entity?