By Charlene Crowell, Center for Responsible Lending
Recent whistleblower complaints of systemic dismantling of fair housing and civil rights enforcement at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have led ranking minority members of both chambers of Congress to jointly call for hearings.
On September 30, a letter co-signed by Rep. Maxine Waters who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren who serves on her chamber’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, together charge that HUD is on “an unalterable course” towards violating long-standing fair housing and related enforcement.
The two lawmakers also identified specific HUD leadership actions that substantiate their requests:
- Advised staff that fair housing work was “not a priority” but an “optics problem”; and encouraged reassignment within the agency as fair housing staff was cut by 70 percent.
- Implemented a gag order that prevented its Office of Fair Housing (OFH) from communicating with external parties both within and outside of HUD “without express approval from political leadership.” This single directive resulted in closing over 100 housing discrimination cases.
- Reassigned 75 percent of the OFH staff assigned to its Violence Against Women’s Act, leaving the office unable to serve or support survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual assault.
“The enforcement of fair housing and civil rights laws is not an ‘optics problem.’ Alleged efforts by HUD leadership to dismantle decades of progress are shameful, betray the American public, and represent a profound abuse of taxpayer dollars,” wrote the lawmakers. “Failure to act leaves millions of Americans at risk of rampant discrimination in housing and mortgage lending.”
From January to July this year, the OFH approved less than $200,000 in settlements stemming from similar discriminatory charges. By comparison, OFH staff, including 22 lawyers, managed 2,000 new complaints annually that resulted in legal settlements ranging from $4-8 million in each of the last five years.
Two September memoranda – one sent to HUD staff, and the other to Fair Housing Initiatives Program Grantees made clear the agency’s shift away from pursuing investigations and enforcement of fair housing violations, and towards swift investigation of alleged violators that prevent burdensome investigations.
On September 16, John Gibbs, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, advised staff of the changes that took immediate effect. Individual complaints will now only consider personal experiences, rather than racial or community-based trends and practices.
“This memorandum also calls attention to priorities and practices that must be eliminated,” wrote Gibbs. “[T]he previous administration’s prioritization of so-called “appraisal bias” and targeting of market-based appraisals was lawless. This group-oriented, race-based guidance runs counter to basic civil rights principles and departs from the plain text of the Fair Housing Act.”
The next day, September 17, Gibbs issued a second memo advising Fair Housing Initiatives Program Grantees of the withdrawal of long-standing documents that provided guidance and context on a range of fair housing issues such as legal standards, real estate transactions, income testing, reasonable accommodations for disabilities, and more.
“The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity is committed to issuing guidance only where that guidance is necessary and would reduce compliance burdens rather than increase them”, wrote Gibbs. “Historically, the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has at times released guidance without adequate regard for whether it would increase or decrease compliance burdens and costs. This policy has changed.”
News of a whistleblower complaint filed by a HUD attorney was first reported by the New York Times on September 22:
“In one email, a Trump appointee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development described decades of housing discrimination cases as “artificial, arbitrary and unnecessary.”
In another, a career supervisor in the department’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity objected to lawyers being reassigned to other offices; the supervisor was fired six days later for insubordination.
“The emails are among dozens of pages of internal communications, memos and other documents reviewed by The New York Times that show efforts by the Trump administration to limit enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, the landmark civil rights law that has prohibited discrimination in housing for nearly six decades.”
On September 23, a civil rights coalition facilitated by the National Fair Housing Alliance brought united concerns from 38 national organizations, 22 states and the District of Columbia, along with 47 state/local organizations – all opposing HUD’s actions.
“In his confirmation hearing, HUD Secretary Scott Turner promised he would “commit to upholding the fair housing laws” during an exchange where he was asked whether he would commit to the vigorous enforcement of the nation’s fair housing laws,” wrote the coalition. “Under his direction, HUD has not lived up to the promise… HUD is affirmatively dismantling its capacity to carry out its statutory responsibility to enforce the Fair Housing Act and other fundamental civil rights laws.”
When redlining continues to deny communities of color access to affordable housing and finance, and racially biased appraisals diminish the accrual of wealth via homeownership that other races and ethnicities receive, the need for fair housing enforcement should not only remain but should be aggressively enforced.
For many consumers and housing advocates alike, catering to alleged fair housing violators instead of those measurably harmed by their actions is a distortion of the letter and spirit of the Fair Housing Law.