On July 23, 2020, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a major change to its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation. With the new rule, HUD has effectively abandoned its professed mission to “create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.” Instead, the Trump administration is extending a decades-long history of housing policy that consistently allows wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods to control opportunity.    

HUD based its new rule on the importance of local control of housing policy. But “local control” can take many forms, and the differences are crucial. More often than not, local planning processes benefit certain communities over others. In Houston, for example, a proposal to build affordable housing in a well-resourced area was stopped by racially-coded objections. In Connecticut, a wealthy, majority-white town rejected any possibility of changing its zoning laws just eight days after a racial justice march was held. When equitable housing plans pass at the local level, as in Minneapolis, it is often the result of a long, uphill battle and of many purposeful attempts to amplify the voices of marginalized residents.  

The new AFFH regulation clearly favors one version of local control over the other. To begin with, the rule establishes a definition to “affirmatively further fair housing” that is purposefully vague and open to interpretation. It also affirms the 2018 removal of the Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH), a key piece of the 2015 rule which required jurisdictions to identify local housing issues and underlying contributing factors and then propose corresponding solutions. Notably, the guidelines for developing an AFH required meaningful local public participation: among other things, jurisdictions were required to host public hearings, consult with community organizations that worked with people of color and/or focused on housing inequality, and publish the final AFH and accompanying data. HUD and the Trump administration have now chosen to eliminate the requirement for even this modest level of community participation. President Trump himself has alluded to the fact that “local control” is simply a thinly-veiled appeal to wealthier and predominantly white communities. In fact, on August 12, the President went further, tweeting that “The “suburban housewife” will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low-income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!” This is a misrepresentation of the 2015 rule, and of the Fair Housing Act itself. 

This change in the rule will only worsen the inequalities being highlighted by COVID-19 and the recent protests for racial justice. The data shows Black Americans’ higher rates of asthma are in large part due to local zoning ordinances that allowed polluters to set up shop in their neighborhoods. Moreover, families of color are more likely to live in multifamily housing because they have historically been blocked from accessing homeownership. Lastly, over-policing is a harmful attempt to address the problems that manifest when entire communities are systemically denied affordable housing and well-funded schools. Geography is one of the most powerful determinants of life outcomes because it mediates access to opportunity; hence, why communities must continue the fight for fair housing.