WASHINGTON—The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and the Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches joined by 95 other fair housing, consumer advocacy, and civil rights organizations and a former HUD official, filed a comment today urging HUD to withdraw its proposed rule removing disparate impact protections from its Title VI regulations. Those protections help ensure equal opportunity and freedom from unnecessary barriers in HUD federal financial assistance. 

The coalition argues that HUD’s legal reasoning is unjustified, and that the rule will further incentivize states and municipalities to steer critical disaster relief funds away from hardest-hit underserved communities and favor wealthier zip codes. These protections are vital to ensuring that federal dollars reach all communities fairly across programs administered by states, local governments, and public housing authorities. 

“In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, HUD found that Texas directed disaster recovery funds away from Black and Latino neighborhoods in Houston, even as those communities faced significant damage. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides an important safeguard against this kind of discrimination in federally funded programs,” said Nikitra Bailey, NFHA Executive Vice President. “Now HUD is attempting to roll back common-sense protections that ensure no community is left behind when disaster strikes.” 

This is HUD’s second attack on disparate impact protections in the same rulemaking. The agency earlier proposed scrapping its Fair Housing Act disparate impact regulations and leaving the question to the courts, a proposal NFHA opposed in formal comments. Now HUD wants to drop its decades-old Title VI requirement that recipients of HUD funding set aside policies that are unfair and unnecessary that are based on race, even when they are not overt. It stops federally funded programs from shutting out communities through policies that serve no legitimate purpose. 

HUD’s proposed changes will no longer require jurisdictions and public housing authorities to select the fairest choice possible when allocating resources, but it will instead leave communities subject to unlawful discrimination in federally funded programs based on race, color, or national origin. 

The following organizations signed the letter to HUD:  

NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 

• National Fair Housing Alliance 

• Access Ready, Inc. 

• African Communities Together 

• American Association of People with Disabilities 

• Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund 

• Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) 

• Center for Responsible Lending 

• Coalition for Human Needs 

• Consumer Federation of America 

• Justice in Aging 

• League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) 

• Mobility Works, Inc. 

• National Action Network 

• National Alliance to End Homelessness 

• National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD) 

• National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) 

• National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients) 

• National Homelessness Law Center 

• National Housing Law Project 

• National Housing Resource Center 

• National Low Income Housing Coalition 

• National Network for Youth 

• National Urban League 

• Operation Restoration 

• PolicyLink 

• Public Justice 

• Race Forward 

• The Kelsey 

• The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law 

• The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 

• The Pathfinder Network – Parenting Inside Out 

• The Redress Movement 

• The Woodstock Institute 

• UnidosUS 

STATE/LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS 

Alabama 

• Center for Fair Housing 

Arizona 

• Southern Arizona Legal Aid, Inc. 

• Southwest Fair Housing Council 

• William E. Morris Institute for Justice 

California 

• CSA San Diego County 

• Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California 

• Fair Housing Council of Central CA 

• Housing Rights Center 

• Project Sentinel, Inc. 

• Public Interest Law Project 

• Western Center on Law & Poverty 

Connecticut 

• Connecticut Fair Housing Center 

• Open Communities Alliance 

District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia/West Virginia 

• Equal Rights Center 

Florida 

• Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches 

• Jacksonville Area Legal Aid 

Georgia 

• Metro Fair Housing Services, Inc. 

Louisiana 

• Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center 

Idaho 

• Intermountain Fair Housing Council, Inc. 

Illinois 

• Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago 

• Open Communities 

• South Suburban Housing Center 

Indiana 

• Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana 

Maryland 

• Advocacy and Training Center 

• Public Justice Center 

Massachusetts 

• Boston’s Higher Ground 

• Community Teamwork 

• Greater Boston Legal Services, Inc., on behalf of BTC et. al. 

Michigan 

• Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan 

• Fair Housing Center of West Michigan 

• Great Lakes ADA Center of Michigan 

• The Change Up Midnight Coalition 

Minnesota 

• Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing (MICAH) 

Nevada 

• Nevada Housing Justice Alliance 

New Jersey 

• Fair Housing Council of Northern New Jersey 

• Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey 

New Mexico 

• United South Broadway Corporation 

New York 

• A Little Piece of Light 

• CNY Fair Housing 

• Fair Housing Justice Center 

• Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc., of Buffalo, NY 

• Long Island Housing Services, Inc. 

• South Country Peace Group 

North Carolina 

• North Carolina Justice Center 

Ohio 

• Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. 

• Fair Housing Center for Rights & Research 

• Fair Housing Resource Center 

• Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Greater Cincinnati 

• Miami Valley Fair Housing Center, Inc. 

• The Fair Housing Center 

Pennsylvania 

• Fair Housing Rights Center in Southeastern PA 

Tennessee 

• Fair Housing Council of Metropolitan Memphis 

Texas 

• Fair Housing Council of South Texas 

• Greater Houston Fair Housing Center 

• Texas Housers 

Vermont 

• Housing & Homelessness Alliance of VT 

Virginia 

• Hampton Roads Community Action Program 

• Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia (HOME) 

• Legal Aid Justice Center 

Wisconsin 

• Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council 

INDEPENDENT STATE AGENCIES 

• Vermont Human Rights Commission 

FORMER PUBLIC OFFICIALS 

• Sara Pratt, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 

Read the full comment letter here.  

Press inquiries: jglover@nationalfairhousing.org 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey released the following statement on an investigation by Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) of Wells Fargo.

“Wells Fargo launched this program under federal rules that expressly allowed it. Congress wrote Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCPs) into federal law 50 years ago to enable lenders to adopt programs to remedy the effects of historic barriers and exclusions from the lending market based on gender, race, and national origin. Federal regulators, HUD included, put in writing that these programs were legal. Investigating a bank for following the government’s own rules to create paths to address longstanding discrimination in lending is an abuse of the agency’s investigative authority and a transparent attempt to scare every lender in the nation away from their legal obligation to serve underserved communities. Past and present discrimination continues to unfairly limit access to homeownership, made worse as the nation currently experiences a fair and affordable housing crisis.

Publicly available data shows that SPCPs work, and they work for everyone. From 2022 to 2024, SPCPs backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped nearly 58,000 people of all races afford homeownership and generated over $17 billion in economic impact. NFHA is in federal court challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule that targets these programs for this very reason.  We’ll keep fighting to protect them because today’s Black-White homeownership gap is wider than it was when the Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968. Addressing discrimination and the homeownership gap are not a zero-sum game, as nearly all net new homeownership growth is projected to come from Black, Latino, and other communities of color. By doing so, we could add trillions to our economy. More importantly, we would achieve the Fair Housing Act’s promise.”
 
Media inquiries: JGlover@NationalFairHousing.org.