Some Ideas Re. Fair Housing

For many years, Congress has mandated 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 federal Fair Housing Act." HUD is supposed to "affirmatively ... further" fair housing (AFFH).

HUD's Fair Housing Planning Guide, ,which governs recipients of the CDBG, HOME funds and related federally-funded programs states HUD is "committed to eliminating ... illegal physical and other barriers to persons with disabilities and other discriminatory practices in housing." The Planning Guide can be found at http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/images/fhpg.pdf

"The fundamental goal of HUD's fair housing policy is to make housing choice a reality through Fair Housing Planning (FHP)".

HUD's Fair Housing Planning Guide states the AFFH is "not restricted" to only HUD-funded programs, but the AFFH "obligation extends to all housing and housing-related activities in the grantee's jurisdictional area whether publicly or privately funded."

FHP means that a recipient of federal housing and community development funds must annually certify compliance with AFFH For CDBG and HOME and related funds, it means that periodically (every four years or so) a jurisdiction must perform an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI), identifying impediments to choice and how these impediments will be eliminated, with a list of specific actions with measurable results. "The AI is a review of impediments to fair housing choice in the public and private sector." Public housing authorities and Housing Choice Voucher programs are required to do a Public Housing Plan that includes this same kind of analysis.

The AI includes reviewing local/state laws and policies/practices and -
assessing how they affect both the "availability and accessibility of
housing";
assessing conditions affecting fair housing choice; and
assessing the availability of affordable, accessible housing in a
range of unit sizes.

Impediments to fair housing choice include "any actions, omissions, or decisions ... which restrict housing choices or the availability of housing choice," including "actions, omissions or decisions that have this effect." Such impediments include "policies, practices or procedures that appear neutral on their fact, but which operate to deny or adversely affect that availability of housing" to persons with disabilities.

HUD states that housing choice is "fundamental to meeting essential needs.... Because housing choice is so critical, fair housing is a goal that public officials must achieve if equality of opportunity is to become a reality."

Here are only a few impediments disability advocates might want to consider:

No requirement that all new private housing construction have a minimal percentage of fully accessible units.
No visitability requirement for all new private housing construction, or failure to enforce existing visitability requirements.
New housing construction in geographical areas without accessible public transportation.
No allocation of HOME Investment Partnership funds to end the unnecessary institutionalization of people in nursing homes by providing Tenant-Based Housing Vouchers.
Permitting the construction of new multifamily housing that does not comply with the basic accessibility requirements of the Fair Housing Act or Section 504
Setting Housing Choice Voucher payment standards too low to permit people with disabilities to have real choice in accessible housing
Rolling back on local requirements for highly accessible housing (as the City of El Paso has done recently, and brought on a complaint to HUD that the City is failing to AFFH)

If you think any of these or your own ideas are impediments in your locales to housing choice or have the effect of being impediments, find out when your local/state Consolidated Plan or Public Housing Plan will be updated and present your own list of impediments experienced by people with disabilities to your local community development office or housing authority. If the local/state public officials do not include the impediments you have identified in their Consolidated Plan or Public Housing Plan and state how and when they will eliminate these impediments, then you should file a complaint with HUD's Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Office in Washington, DC.

We'll then see if HUD walks the walk or merely talks the talk.

Special thanks to Michael Allen for his suggestions.

Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues

Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects. To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@cs.com or call 215-627-7100