Trump administration ends Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule

HUD said that despite the elimination of the rule, it remains committed to enforcing the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The move has been expected since Trump reassumed office.

“By terminating the AFFH rule, localities will no longer be required to complete onerous paperwork and drain their budgets to comply with the extreme and restrictive demands made up by the federal government,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement.

“This action also returns decisions on zoning, home building, transportation, and more to local leaders. As HUD returns to the original understanding and enforcement of the law without onerous compliance requirements, we can better serve rural, urban and tribal communities that need access to fair and affordable housing.”

Implemented in 2015 under the Obama administration, the AFFH rule was intended as an extension of the Fair Housing Act and required any public housing agencies (PHAs) or recipient of federal block grants to file a report on the ways that segregation and discrimination persisted in a given jurisdiction.

HUD provided a questionnaire and tools to develop a plan. Advocates said it took about four hours to complete, and jurisdictions had to file one every five years. The AFFH rule did not require PHAs to act on the plan but simply to use the tools to develop and file it.

With the elimination of the rule, Turner said that a locality that certifies it is affirmatively furthering fair housing is sufficient for compliance with the Fair Housing Act.

A third-party subject matter expert on the call, speaking on behalf of HUD, acknowledged that implementing the plan was optional but still characterized it as a “government takeover,” adding that it also amounted to a “zoning tax.”

At the heart of this argument is that localities that didn’t file the report risked losing federal block grants administered by HUD — specifically Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs) that the vast majority of U.S. jurisdictions use to fund a wide variety of public housing projects.

Later on the call, the expert said that in practice, the AFFH rule didn’t have much of an impact, but it served as a tremendous administrative burden.

One of Trump’s first moves after being inaugurated on Jan. 20 was to freeze all federal grants from being distributed. That action has faced numerous legal challenges since it was announced.

In Trump’s first term, his budget requests called for the elimination of the CDBG program. Trump also eliminated the AFFH rule during his first term, but former President Joe Biden partially reinstated it.