Fair Housing

Investigations into the fair housing practices of two US cities directly contradict race-neutral guidance from the Supreme Court. Cities must continue this work.

As the mortgage industry becomes further automated, can artificial intelligence be trained to avoid replicating historic bias and expand access to loans for excluded borrowers? Some housing advocates are cautiously optimistic.

Starting with cases involving sexual orientation and identity, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is hobbling enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. Said one HUD attorney: “People are really being harmed by it.”

Since Trump took office, the administration has blocked multiple affordable housing funding streams. Here’s a look at which funds have been frozen, which have been reinstated, and which are in the courts.

The Mount Laurel Doctrine is credited with helping to create 75,000 affordable homes in New Jersey. But, of course, it hasn’t been a simple panacea either.

HUD is attempting to withdraw more than half of its grants to the private organizations that educate about and enforce housing-related anti-discrimination laws.

Housing advocates say they haven’t received answers about the status of $3.6 billion in funds awarded by the Biden administration to local continuums of care. Along with massive cuts planned for HUD’s staff, this means critical homelessness services are at risk.

The president’s executive orders threaten the funding of a wide range of housing programs in the U.S. Over a dozen federal grantees told us how they’ve been affected, and how they’re planning for an uncertain future.

The incoming administration’s plans could include taking apart the agency and withdrawing the AFFH rule. What specific changes have been hinted at and how easily might they be accomplished?

For decades, insurance regulators have resisted requiring the kind of disclosures that are now routine around mortgage lending. But that might change.

Programs that offer reentry housing for formerly incarcerated people often replicate jail or prison settings. How can housing providers do better?

Last year it seemed like a new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was imminent, but it never happened. And now it’s late enough in the term that if it were finalized, next year’s Congress could invalidate it.