Groups file
a lawsuit against the HUD and its secretary, Ben Carson, over his decision to delay an Obamaera rule intended to ensure that communities address racial segregation.
WASHINGTON — A group of advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit Tuesday against 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.
The lawsuit filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance, Texas Appleseed and Texas Low Income Housing Information Service argues that Carson illegally suspended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act when he announced 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.
Asked for comment, a HUD spokesman sent a copy of the agency’s Jan. 4 announcement of the rule delay.
Finalized in 2015, the rule for the first time required over 1,200 jurisdictions receiving HUD block grants and housing aid to analyze 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 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. HUD 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 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 the statement.
Carson in 2015 criticized the rule as being a form of “social engineering.”
But the lawsuit says the fact that submissions are failing to meet the requirements “reaffirms, rather than calls into question, why HUD thought the rule necessary.”
A federal judge late last year blocked Carson from suspending another Obama-era regulation intended to more accurately estimate appropriate dollar amounts for housing vouchers by basing them on ZIP codes rather than on metropolitan areas.
The plaintiffs are hoping a judge will make a similar finding in this case.