Trump Administration Prepares to Drop Seven Major Housing Discrimination Cases

Source: Propublica

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is preparing to shut down seven major investigations and cases concerning alleged housing discrimination and segregation, including some where the agency already found civil rights violations, according to HUD records obtained by ProPublica.

The high-profile cases involve allegations that state and local governments across the South and Midwest illegally discriminated against people of color by placing industrial plants or low-income housing in their neighborhoods, and by steering similar facilities away from white neighborhoods, among other allegations. HUD has been pursuing these cases — which range from instances where the agency has issued a formal charge of discrimination to newer investigations — for as many as seven years. In three of them, HUD officials had determined that the defendants had violated the Fair Housing Act or related civil rights laws. A HUD staffer familiar with the other four investigations believes civil rights violations occurred in each, the official told ProPublica. Under President Donald Trump, the agency now plans to abruptly end all of them, regardless of prior findings of wrongdoing.

Four HUD officials said they could recall no precedent for the plan, which they said signals an acceleration of the administration’s retreat from fair housing enforcement. “No administration previously has so aggressively rolled back the basic protections that help people who are being harmed in their community,” one of the officials said. “The civil rights protections that HUD enforces are intended to protect the most vulnerable people in society.”

In the short term, closing the cases would allow the local governments in question to continue allegedly mistreating minority communities, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. In the long term, they said, it could embolden local politicians and developers elsewhere to take actions that entrench segregation, without fear of punishment from the federal government.

Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-hud-drop-housing-discrimination-cases-housing-pollution