In a bid to reverse measures taken during the former administration that weakened fair housing rules, President Joe Biden issued a memorandum Tuesday reexamining regulatory actions.
The memo directs the Department of Housing and Urban Development to examine recent regulatory actions related to fair housing and take actions necessary to implement the Fair Housing Act.
Linda Couch, LeadingAge vice president of housing policy, said the association “strongly supports” those efforts, including “affirmatively furthering fair housing and protecting people from practices with discriminatory effects.”
“LeadingAge has urged HUD to reverse course on Trump-era weakening of the Fair Housing Act and welcomes the White House’s direction to HUD to do so,” Couch told McKnight’s Senior Living. “Expanding the supply of affordable housing for older adults with low incomes, a key LeadingAge policy goal, cannot be fully realized until every community has the tools it needs to meet the goals of the Fair Housing Act, coupled with strong federal oversight to ensure compliance.”
The memo specifically targets recent regulatory actions that repealed a 2015 rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing and affected compliance with the Fair Housing Act.
The memo orders HUD to take any necessary steps “to implement the Fair Housing Act’s requirements that HUD administer its programs in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing and HUD’s overall duty to administer the Act, including by preventing practices with an unjustified discriminatory effect.”
Acting HUD Secretary Matthew E. Ammon said the executive order is “a vital step toward redressing the federal government’s legacy of housing discrimination and securing equal access to housing opportunity for all.”
“Racially discriminatory housing practices and policies have kept communities of color from accessing safe, high quality housing and the chance to build wealth that comes through home ownership,” Ammon said in a statement. “Only by recognizing and acknowledging our nation’s history of housing discrimination can we begin to lift the barriers to safe, accessible and affordable housing.”
