National Housing Conference says HUD fair housing assessment tool should be reinstated
WASHINGTON – (RealEstateRama) — NHC has called on HUD to reinstate its Assessment Tool and continue requiring communities to submit Assessments of Fair Housing (AFH) over its outdated and inefficient predecessor. HUD ended the new approach earlier this year. The request was made in comments submitted by NHC to HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH): Streamlining and Enhancements advanced notice of proposed rulemaking.
NHC believes that every delay in AFH submissions contributes to the lack of progress in enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. Reverting to a process that most agree is deeply flawed is a waste of time and taxpayer resources, NHC said in its comment letter.
David M. Dworkin, NHC president and CEO, said “While we have made a lot of tangible progress in the past fifty years, we have also had some devastating setbacks. The most significant failure is the fact that African-American homeownership is lower than it was in April of 1968, when the Fair Housing Act was enacted in the days following the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This is a national tragedy that must change.”
NHC was a leading advocate of the Fair Housing Act throughout the 1960s. Dworkin noted that “despite its flaws, the AFH process was the best means to ensure jurisdictions receiving HUD funding address the systemic and historic patterns of segregation that were, in no small part, created and maintained by the federal government through the Home Owners Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration. We can improve the process without throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water.”
About NHC: The National Housing Conference has been defending the American Home since 1931. Everyone in America should have equal opportunity to live in a quality, affordable home in a thriving community. NHC convenes and collaborates with our diverse membership and the broader housing and community development sectors to advance our policy, research and communications initiatives to effect positive change at the federal, state and local levels. Politically diverse and nonpartisan, NHC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
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CONTACT:
Andrea Nesby
