Letter: New HUD rule counters Fair Housing Act

As leaders of public housing authorities in the Puget Sound region, we are distressed that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is enacting a new rule that is directly counter to the Federal Fair Housing Act, which requires all federal agencies to affirmatively further fair housing in the administration of their programs. As the primary housing oversight arm of the federal government, HUD bears a particular responsibility to do this.

An important tool for this purpose has long been HUD’s regulation requiring local and stae governments, as a condition of receipt of federal funding, to demonstrate that they are affirmatively furthering fair housing. Yet, in its new rule, HUD is largely removing any meaningful enforcement by terminating the current Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule and its reporting requirements. 

Read the full letter, from the Executive Directors of the Tacoma, Seattle, Renton, and King County Housing Authorities, at the Woodinville Weekly