Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing


Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is a provision of the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The law requires that "All executive departments and agencies shall administer their programs and activities relating to housing and urban development in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes of" the Fair Housing Act. The law also requires the Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to administer all HUD programs in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing. Since the Fair Housing Act has a dual purpose - both the elimination of all forms of housing discrimination and residentially segregated communities, affirmatively furthering fair housing is essentially fulfilling the dual purpose of the law.

2015 changes

In July 2015, HUD promulgated the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule pursuant to the Fair Housing Act. It requires cities and towns which receive Federal money for any housing or urban development related purpose to examine whether there are any barriers to fair housing, housing patterns or practices that promote bias based on any protected class under the Fair Housing Act, and to create a plan for rectifying fair housing barriers. The intention is to promote equal housing opportunities and level the playing field so that all neighborhoods provide the quality services and amenities that are important for people to live successful lives. Civil rights groups hailed the rule citing decades-long patterns of government-sponsored segregation and discriminatory practices, while conservatives decried it as "social engineering."
The 2015 rules required cities and towns, in order to receive funding from HUD to document patterns of racial bias in their neighborhoods, to publicly report the results every three to five years, and to set and track goals to reduce segregation. Under the new rules, any jurisdiction that receives money from HUD must analyze its housing occupancy by race, disability, familial status, economic status, English proficiency, and other categories. It must then analyze factors which contribute to any prohibitive barriers in housing and formulate a plan to remedy the impediments. The plan can be approved or disapproved by HUD. This is done at both the local and regional level. For example, a major city, such as Chicago, will have to analyze any racial disparities within Chicago, and Chicago suburbs will analyze their own racial disparities. In addition, Chicago and the suburbs will have to analyze any disparities as compared with each other. Thereafter, the community has to track progress. The planning cycle will be repeated every five years. If the Federal Government is not satisfied with a community's efforts to reduce, federal funds could be withheld.

2020 changes

In a tweet posted on July 23, 2020 by the president of the United states, Donald J. Trump, he stated that "...I am happy to inform all of the people living in their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood. Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. ENJOY!" In 2020, the HUD Secretary announced plans to move away from the 2015 changes and to propose a new version of the rule to offer "clearer guidance to states and local governments to help them improve affordable housing choices in their community.” On July 23, the Trump administration announced that it is revoking the Obama-era housing regulation, and in a press release, the HUD Secretary Ben Carson said that implementation had proven to be “to be complicated, costly, and ineffective.”, saying:
The administration is replacing the AFFH with the Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice rule, which Carson said will offer state and local government the benefit of the doubt to maintain fair housing practices.
“This brand-new rule…defines fair housing broadly to mean housing that, among other attributes, is affordable, safe, decent, free of unlawful discrimination, and accessible under civil rights laws. It then defines ‘affirmatively furthering fair housing’ to mean any action rationally related to promoting any of the above attributes of fair housing,” the HUD secretary’s statement read. https://nypost.com/2020/07/29/trump-defends-scrapping-fair-housing-laws-to-protect-suburbs/ According to the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson Washington does the right and the responsibility to ensure fair housing for all Americans, not just people living the “ Suburban Lifestyle Dream”. It is widely recognized that
The division between urban and suburban America is closely tied to the country’s history of racial segregation. Even long after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, numerous studies and reports have revealed a long line of policies that have kept Black people out of white suburbs, as well as other forms of housing discrimination. The connection between Trump’s aspersion on low-income housing in the suburbs and racial segregation is not lost on his critics. Adrianne Todman, CEO of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, said Trump’s remarks were a deep insult to those who live in, work in and build low-income housing. She stressed that those who live in low-income housing offer valuable contributions to all communities. “If you are a person of modest means, know that your value is not derived by how much money you make, but by who you are,” Todman said in a statement to POLITICO on Wednesday. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/29/trump-housing-policy-low-income-suburbs-386414. There is a significant link between appropriate housing, community involvement and health. According to the World Health Organization’s 2018 Housing and Health Guidelines, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-housing-and-health-guidelines, improved housing conditions can save lives, prevent disease, increase quality of life, reduce poverty, and help mitigate climate change. The American Occupational Therapy Association also acknowledges that a natural balanced pattern of occupations that includes appropriate housing, is believed to be health enhancing and fulfills the needs of the individual, family, community, or population and the demands of the environment.
. According to the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion,
Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. To
reach a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, an individual or group must be able to
identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment. Health is,
therefore, seen as a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept
emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities. Therefore, health promotion is not
just the responsibility of the health sector but goes beyond healthy lifestyles to well-being. By rescinding the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation, a step backwards has been taken for millions of Americans whose lives had been positively impacted the AFFH.
For nearly 40 years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has
established health promotion and disease prevention objectives to facilitate and measure
improvement in health. The vision of Healthy People
2030 is the realization of “a society in which all people achieve their full potential for health and
well-being across the lifespan” and not just for those people that live in suburbia.