Fair Housing Rule Helps Local Leaders Counteract Persistent Segregation

By Kalima Rose & Lisa Cylar Barrett

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH) upgrades a forty-year-old law with tools and techniques to better advance fair housing goals and access to opportunity in every community. Sadly, there is an effort this week to hamstring AFFH through inserting a rider into the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill. The opposition ignores the fact that the rule was developed in response to city- and state-level requests for better tools and improved guidance; that it involved significant input from local-level innovators and experimenters; and that it was piloted in 74 regions nationwide over five years in the Sustainable Communities initiative through a tool called the fair housing and equity assessment (FHEA).  (Read more)