Barack Obama

Amid the Civil Rights movement, the Fair Housing Act was seen as a bold move to prohibit forms of explicit discrimination in housing. The law succeeded in stamping out many of the most overtly racist housing and lending policies that were commonplace during the Jim Crow era, and has since become a vital tool for tackling less obvious forms of discrimination. But the federal government admits that it hasn't adequately upheld one of the Fair Housing Act's most important mandates: to actively uproot segregation and promote the growth of integrated, balanced communities -- or in other words, to affirmatively further fair housing.

In one of the more glaring oversights, HUD was supposed to withhold federal housing grants from states, cities and towns that failed to comply with rules that compelled recipients to monitor and fight housing segregation. Instead, HUD effectively served as a rubber stamp, denying funds to communities that were in violation of the Fair Housing Act on just two occasions since the late 1960s, according to a 2012 ProPublica report.

In part due to these failures, residential segregation has to this day remained an entrenched feature of housing patterns across the United States. HUD is characterizing its new rule as a forceful re-commitment to the Fair Housing Act's directive on dismantling this potent form of inequity. The document outlines how cities and towns that want to receive grants need to study segregation and how these patterns affect various communities. The new rule also includes reporting standards for these HUD partners to communicate their plans on reducing residential segregation, as well as benchmarks they are expected to meet in order to receive money. HUD will also provide state and local housing agencies with comprehensive data on housing trends and residential demographics, which it says will allow them to make more informed policy decisions toward the goal of fair housing.