Groups to sue Ben Carson over delay of anti-segregation rule

WASHINGTON — A group of advocacy organizations plans to sue the Department of Housing and Urban Development and its secretary, Ben Carson, over his decision to delay an Obama-era rule intended to ensure that communities confront and address racial segregation.

A draft of the lawsuit argues that Carson illegally suspended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act when he abruptly announced earlier this year that cities and counties receiving federal funds won’t be required to analyze housing data and submit plans to HUD for addressing segregation until after 2020. The lawsuit was expected to be filed Tuesday by the National Fair Housing Alliance, Texas Appleseed and Texas Low Income Housing Information Service. HUD did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.

Finalized in 2015, the rule for the first time required more than 1,200 jurisdictions receiving HUD block grants and housing aid to analyze its housing stock and come up with a plan for addressing patterns of segregation and discrimination.

If HUD determined that the plan, called a Fair Housing Assessment, wasn’t sufficient, the city or county would have to rework it or risk losing funding.

HUD said in January that it would immediately stop reviewing plans that had been submitted but not yet accepted, and that jurisdictions won’t have to comply with the rule until after 2020. The agency said the postponement was in response to complaints from communities that had struggled to complete assessments and produce plans meeting HUD’s standards; of the 49 submissions HUD received in 2017, roughly a third were sent back. “What we heard convinced us that the Assessment of Fair Housing tool for local governments wasn’t working well,” HUD said in a statement.

“In fact, more than a third of our early submitters failed to produce an acceptable assessment_ not for lack of trying but because the tool designed to help them to succeed wasn’t helpful.”

Carson in an editorial in 2015 criticized the rule as being a form of “social engineering.”

But a draft of the suit says the fact that submissions are failing to meet the requirements “reaffirms, rather than calls into question, why HUD thought the rule necessary.”