NLIHC joined 14 members of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Fair Housing and Lending Task Force in a letter urging HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge to take action on fair housing rules and regulations. The letter outlines the Fair Housing and Fair Lending Task Force’s administrative priorities for 2024 and calls on HUD to prioritize and strengthen fair housing regulations. The letter also urges HUD to finalize additional rules and guidance in key areas, including Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH); criminal history eligibility; tenant screening; the Section 8 Management Assessment Program; source-of-income discrimination; implementation of the “Violence Against Women Act”; and enhanced voucher protections.
Specifically, the Task Force urges Secretary Fudge to finalize the AFFH rule and focus on implementation before the end of the year, including by developing and disseminating written guidebooks on the new rule. The letter also urges HUD to start MOUs with the U.S. Departments of the Treasury, Commerce, and Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency, as those agencies have a responsibility to ensure that federal infrastructure funding meets AFFH standards. Regarding Housing Choice Vouchers (HCV), the Task Force urges HUD to issue guidance to public housing agencies on how to best support families who experience source-of-income discrimination and general guidance on the discriminatory effects of minimum income requirements and credit checks on the HCV program. On tenants with criminal backgrounds, the Task Force recommends that HUD publish a final rule on conviction screenings for tenants of HUD-assisted housing and finalize guidance for tenant screening companies on using algorithms to conduct background checks. Lastly, the Task Force recommends that HUD finalize regulations for the Enhanced Voucher program to ensure tenants can remain in their original homes and are not displaced from gentrifying communities and urges HUD to simplify the funding mechanism for Fair Housing Initiatives Program’s Private Enforcement Initiative.
Read the full letter here.