Civil rights, housing and consumer advocates urge HUD to rescind ‘watered down’ fair housing rule

Implemented in 2015 under the Obama administration, the AFFH rule was intended as an extension of the Fair Housing Act and required any public housing agencies (PHAs) or recipients of federal block grants to file a report on the ways that segregation and discrimination persisted in a given jurisdiction.

But the new rule “revises HUD’s regulation governing the Fair Housing Act’s mandate that the secretary administer HUD’s program and activities in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing,” according to its entry in the Federal Register. “This interim final rule returns to the original understanding of what the statutory AFFH certification was prior to 1994 — a general commitment that grantees will take active steps to promote fair housing.”

The new letter — led by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and co-signed by more than thirty national advocacy groups and state-based and local organizations across 34 states and the District of Columbia — says the rule “significantly waters down” affirmatively furthering fair housing to the point of exacerbating issues impacting the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

“Imagine a society in which every child and every person can live in a neighborhood with ample affordable and accessible housing, fresh air, clean water, good public transportation, living wage jobs, quality healthcare, healthy foods, and affordable credit. That is what affirmatively furthering fair housing means,” said Nikitra Bailey, EVP of NFHA.

“However, the Trump administration has backed away from the federal government’s duty to affirmatively further fair housing and taken away critical tools that states and localities needed and requested to address the nation’s fair and affordable housing crisis and advance the American Dream of having a safe, stable place to call home.”

The full, 36-page letter includes data on the severity of housing discrimination complaints nationwide in 2023, showing a concentration in the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Using National Association of Realtors (NAR) data, it illustrates the low average homeownership rates of minority communities relative to their white counterparts.

Using Brookings Institution data, it illustrates differences in the wealth of white households versus those of other races, saying “the racial wealth gap has remained wide and persistent.” It examines the issue of redlining and its visibility in American communities, while illustrating the rising trend of housing costs between 2014 and 2022 and the cost burdens on renters based on data from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS).

Citing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the letter states that “homeowners’ insurance costs are rapidly rising, largely due to an increase in climate-related disasters.”

“As everyday people in America struggle to make ends meet, HUD has issued the watered-down 2025 AFFH IFR, which will only worsen the fair and affordable housing crisis by weakening mandates and taking key tools away from states and localities despite many of them requesting HUD’s guidance,” the letter said. “Consistent with the current administration’s anti-civil rights framework, HUD and the administration are taking actions that will only decrease housing opportunity for the people of America.”

But HUD leadership’s position is that the AFFH rule — originally enacted during the Barack Obama administration before it was targeted during President Trump’s first term, and effectively restarted under President Biden — amounted to a government-sanctioned “annexing” of U.S. suburbs and signaled that action would be taken to roll it back.

“We are going after AFFH to restore the power, the flexibility, the rule-making authority back to localities, back to states because they understand their needs,” Turner said in February during an appearance on a conservative commentator’s program. “They understand the needs they have in their local neighborhoods. The federal government should not be heavy-handed mandating how people zone, or how people build in different localities.”

Two weeks later, HUD announced in a media conference that it was ending the rule, but remains committed to enforcing the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

“By terminating the AFFH rule, localities will no longer be required to complete onerous paperwork and drain their budgets to comply with the extreme and restrictive demands made up by the federal government,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement in February.

“This action also returns decisions on zoning, home building, transportation, and more to local leaders. As HUD returns to the original understanding and enforcement of the law without onerous compliance requirements, we can better serve rural, urban and tribal communities that need access to fair and affordable housing.”