The Biden Administration is at the point of releasing a final rule articulating the obligation of communities to “affirmatively further fair housing,” an important yet unrealized aspect of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. (Yes, 1968.) This will provide all of us who care about homelessness a new opportunity to make housing more available to people who have been shut out.

What is Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing?

“Affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH) refers to taking intentional steps, using federal housing funding, to ensure that people in protected groups have housing that meets the goals of the Fair Housing Act. Protected groups are those who have experienced discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), and disability. Achieving fair housing has two aspects: first, ensuring no direct discrimination is taking place, including in geographic areas where people from protected groups are often screened out; and second, using federal funding to transform areas where protected groups have historically lived into more thriving communities.

The authors of the Fair Housing Act recognized that the effects of 350 years of slavery and its aftermath weren’t going to go away by themselves. So they included language to support the AFFH requirement with the idea that communities could use federal funding to undo the damage inflicted by racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and ableism. Nevertheless, no regulations were enacted aimed at serious implementation and enforcement until 2015, near the end of the Obama Administration. Those regulations were quickly reversed by the Trump Administration. The Biden Administration has now issued proposed final regulations that were supported by the Alliance and its partners. Comments have been collected, and final regulations are in the works.

What AFFH Regulations Will Do, and How to Use Them

If the final regulations are similar to the Biden Administration’s proposed regulations, they will provide important opportunities for all of us. Each community will be required to develop a plan for fair housing, with participation from local government, nonprofits and others who receive or administer federal housing funding.

The plan will include processes to:

  • assess the impacts of discrimination on the community;
  • set objectives and strategies for improving the situation;
  • address the dual purposes of the Fair Housing Act:
    • to ensure that people in protected groups can have access to housing in any parts of the community, and
    • to ensure that areas of the community to which protected groups have historically been limited, and that provide limited economic, cultural, and other opportunities, become richer in those aspects.

Read the full article about the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule by Steve Berg at National Alliance to End Homelessness.