The goal of “fair housing” would seem to be quite straightforward. As spelled out in the Fair Housing Act of 1968 \u2014 and found in realtors\u2019 offices across the country \u2014 it precludes “discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings \u2026 based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status, and disability.” In other words, those who can afford to rent or buy should not be precluded from doing so for reasons having nothing to do with the ability to pay.
\nBut for the Biden administration\u2019s Department of Housing and Urban Development, fair housing is more \u2014 much more. In proposed regulations that would touch any jurisdiction that accepts any sort of HUD funding, fair housing must mean a plan to “promote equity in their communities, decrease segregation, and increase access to opportunity and community assets for people of color and other underserved communities.”
\nTranslated that means that the route to upward mobility for disadvantaged minorities lies through their relocation to more affluent communities, where they will no longer be “underserved.”
\nThe details as to how this should be done run more than 200 pages. Those required to comply will include more than 1,200 cities and counties receiving HUD funding. All will be required to develop “equity plans.”
\nSuch equity could mean anything from building low-income housing to redrawing school district lines for racial or socio-economic integration, all as assessed by the HUD bureaucracy.
\nBoth those concerned about the best routes to upward mobility for the poor and those concerned about administrative state overreach have reasons to be dubious.
\nOpposition to the “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH) regulations will undoubtedly be labeled as racist defense of White suburbs. That is certainly how Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 decision to suspend a previous Obama-era version of the rules was characterized. As CNN Business put it then, Trump was merely protecting neighborhoods with “higher-than-average shares\u202fof white households” from low-income housing.
\nIt has of late been a liberal mantra that children\u2019s future should not be determined by the ZIP Code where they grow up \u2014 and the HUD plan is meant to disperse low-income households where they are presumed to benefit from better schools and parks, which presumably city governments are inherently incapable of providing.
\nYet the actual Harvard study is far more nuanced, although it finds that “every extra year of childhood spent in a low-poverty environment appears to be beneficial,” it also notes that “for older children (those between ages 13-18), we find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood has a statistically insignificant or slightly negative effect.” It is hard to imagine a government effort that would limit participation for households based on the age of their children.
\nMore broadly, however, HUD fails to acknowledge that sustained upward mobility is based on the constructive life decisions made at the family level \u2014 including marriage and employment. These are the building blocks of the economic gains that enable moves to better neighborhoods. It is such moves that must be protected by enforcement of anti-discrimination law.
\nHistorically, it was the federal government, specifically the Federal Housing Administration, which engaged in racial discrimination by refusing to guarantee mortgages in racially changing neighborhoods.
\nHUD would bring us to a new era of color consciousness in housing policy, in the name of “equity” \u2014 comparable life outcomes for those making distinct life choices.
\nDon\u2019t be surprised if those objecting include the suburban African-American middle class, which has worked hard and played by the rules. Their concern was captured in a recent New York Times article about “black flight” from racially integrated Shaker Heights, Ohio. It quoted a Black library staffer who said, “There\u2019s a group of African Americans that have achieved and have it together. And then there\u2019s the group that\u2019s still caught in not having achieved. \u2026 And I come from the mind-set: Separate yourselves at all costs from the ones who might still be struggling.”
\nSuburbs do need a great variety of non-single family housing types. But they should not be coerced by Washington to build new low-income housing projects.
\nThen there\u2019s what can be seen as the constitutional question raised by the AFFH regulations. HUD\u2019s lengthy proposal is based on the thinnest of reeds in the 1968 Fair Housing Law, which, following its main anti-discrimination language, goes on direct other Federal agencies “to administer their programs \u2026 relating to housing and urban development \u2026 in a manner affirmatively to further” the policies of the act.
\nIt is into that small lane that HUD drives its big, regulatory truck, with communities across the country in its path. HUD defines equity as “access to high quality schools, equitable employment opportunities, reliable transportation services, parks and recreation facilities, community centers, community-based supportive services, law enforcement and emergency services, healthcare services, grocery stores, retail establishments, infrastructure and municipal services, libraries, and banking and financial institutions.”
\nAs those aware of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to overturn the EPA\u2019s Clean Power plan know well, the court is increasingly aware of regulatory requirements that go beyond legislative intent.
\nLocal jurisdictions receiving HUD funds would seem to have grounds to sue to block the proposed rule, which would impose new requirements to receive previously accepted funds continent and new requirements. In 2012, the court overturned the portion of the Affordable Care Act requiring states to expand Medicaid for that reason. Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer concurred.
\nRacial discrimination in housing is pernicious. For Washington to invoke it to socially engineer neighborhoods across America is dangerous.<\/p>\n
Foxnews<\/p>\n
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