Fair Housing / Lending News

            With Justice Kennedy’s retirement comes the possible overturning of decisions that will affect society broadly, one of them being Tex. Dep't of Hous. & Cmty. Affairs v. Inclusive Cmtys. Project, Inc. , 135 S. Ct. 2507 (2015).   Kennedy was the swing vote that decided on “disparate impact”, which prohibits discrimination in housing when the discrimination is not intended. In Inclusive Community Projects housing waivers where being concentrated in minority and lower income neighborhoods which denied the recipients the benefits of being part of a more opportunists neighborhood.             Furthermore, under Secretary Carson HUD has said that they will reexamine their desperate impact rule. There is no need to do this as the SCOTUS has already adjudicated that this rule is constitutional. There are fears that if HUD stops or softens the enforcement of this rule legal battles will ensue. If these legal battles make their way to the SCOTUS, then it is possible that In

            Senator Maxine Water’s has introduced CRL, H.R. 6220., this bill is a response to the actions of Secretary of HUD Ben Carson.   Carson has proposed cutting the HUD budget by 1 billion dollars, increased rental fees, has removed fair housing language from their mission statement, and has suspended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule. Senator Water’s proposed bill is intended to restore HUD’s fair housing agenda. This restoration entails: the adding the fair housing language to the mission statement, restoring “HUD’s AFFH rule as soon as practically possible following the bill’s enactment; HUD’s Local Government Assessment Tool that helps state and local jurisdictions to comply with the AFFH rule within 30 days of enactment; and a requirement that the HUD Secretary report to Congress a Secretary-directed review of fair housing complaints that involve an online platform , the addition of   an analysis of trends and risks related to discrimination, steps to ad