Local rule died in America on July 8, 2015. With it passes the rights of rural and suburban communities to decide their own futures. The trigger was the final 377-page ruling from HUD called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing[ia] that attempts to remove discrimination and achieve balanced and integrated living patterns.
As one blogger beams, “What could possibly be wrong with helping low-income families to move into better neighborhoods?” In this case, everything.
AFFH is reminiscent of the old cartoon character Elmer Fudd, who used his shotgun to abolish an annoying fly. He blew up furniture, broke windows and destroyed his home, while the fly happily buzzed away. Like Elmer, AFFH leaves a destructive wake and does little to solve the problem.
Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing requires the agencies that apply for HUD grants to perform massive demographic analyses locally and again regionally to determine any imbalances in living patterns as defined by HUD. Communities then resolve the imbalances to HUD’s satisfaction. Recipients must complete the analysis every five years.[ii]
Communities receiving HUD grants must complete an Assessment of Fair Housing that requires recipients to analyze occupancy data including, race, color, religion, national origins, English proficiency[iii] and more along with a list of factors that might contribute to an imbalance of living patterns between low, middle, and upper middle-income families. Imbalances might be the result of segregation or disproportionate housing needs based on race, color, religion, national origins and more.
Recipients then create a list of community assets such as parks, recreation areas, schools and jobs along with a breakdown of any barriers[iv] that might prevent access by all community members. A barrier might be as simple as an application requirement for public housing, home size, or a neighborhood voicing resistance to having low-income housing next door. Once the recipients identify the barriers, they submit a mitigation plan for HUD’s approval.
Through each process step, HUD maintains control. The Assessment of Fair Housing even measures the success of your community outreach against HUD’s own national standards.[v] HUD provides, and communities must use, nationally and regionally uniform data[vi] to create their assessment.
Sound exhausting? You are just beginning. AFFH also makes you provide a similar regional Assessment of Fair Housing.
Wealth” explains,
“it’s not enough for, say, Philadelphia’s “Mainline” Montgomery County suburbs to analyze their own populations by race, ethnicity, and class to determine whether there are any imbalances in where groups live, or in access to schools, parks, transportation, and jobs. Those suburbs are also obligated to compare their own housing situations to the Greater Philadelphia region as a whole.” [vii]
If you think AFFH will not apply to your community, you are wrong. The new regulation targets each of the nation’s 74,000 census tracts[viii] and applies to current, future and past recipients of Community Development Block Grants, HOME Investment Partnerships, Emergency Solutions Grants and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS.
Given the scope of the analysis and the dual local and regional requirements, virtually every recipient will require a discrimination mitigation plan that can include additional affordable housing, additional transportation choices or new hi-density structures, all paid for by the communities.
Read more at http://canadafreepress.com/article/74776
