Diane Yentel, the president of the Nationwide Low Earnings Housing Coalition, an advocacy group primarily based in Washington, questioned the timin
Diane Yentel, the president of the Nationwide Low Earnings Housing Coalition, an advocacy group primarily based in Washington, questioned the timing of the tweet — particularly since Mr. Trump seldom weighs in on such particular coverage issues.
“It’s particularly abhorrent for the president to threaten additional entrenchment of segregated communities now, throughout a time of counting on racial injustices in our nation,” Ms. Yentel mentioned. “A direct line connects America’s historical past of racist housing insurance policies to as we speak’s overpolicing of Black and brown communities.”
It’s unclear how the pandemic, financial swoon and native moratoriums on lease funds will have an effect on the proposed rule adjustments. Even earlier than the present disaster, homelessness charges have been on the rise, particularly on the West Coast. On the identical time, Black homeownership charges have dropped to ranges not seen for the reason that 1960s.
The Affirmatively Furthering Truthful Housing coverage was meant to exchange oversight of federal spending on housing that was broadly seen as ineffective, particularly when it got here to discrimination primarily based on race, incapacity, gender, age and sexual orientation.
The brand new guidelines, in idea, created stricter benchmarks for communities receiving federal funding, however compliance proved tough, and HUD was nonetheless engaged on a device equipment that will have made it simpler for localities to file the required reviews when Mr. Trump was elected, Mr. Donovan mentioned.
Opponents, together with some native officers, seen the brand new system as onerous — and located a receptive viewers for his or her complaints when Ben Carson, a mind surgeon with no housing expertise, was confirmed as Mr. Trump’s housing secretary in 2017.
By 2018, Mr. Carson, a free-market conservative and the one Black particular person in Mr. Trump’s cupboard, delayed enactment of the regulation and signaled his intention to get rid of it altogether, half of a bigger technique of slow-walking honest housing investigations and marginalizing division officers who aggressively pursued circumstances.