Fair Housing

PRRAC’s fair housing work encompasses implementation of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing mandate, as well as research and advocacy to expand opportunity in federal housing programs at HUD, the Treasury Department, and state housing finance agencies. We also provide technical assistance to local housing agencies and advocates on AFFH, housing mobility, and local reform of the Housing Choice Voucher program.

The LIHTC program, launched in 1987 and administered by the Treasury Department and state housing finance agencies, is the largest low-income housing production program in the country. Unlike HUD housing programs, LIHTC has operated with little or no civil rights regulatory oversight, and siting of projects in many states have reproduced patterns of segregation of low-income families of color in high-poverty neighborhoods. In other states, developments located in low poverty areas may not be reaching the families who need housing most. But thanks to growing recognition of the need for better balance, the 2015 ICP v. Texas case and other advocacy, and reforms within the state housing finance agency community, we are starting to see progress toward a more balanced and fair LIHTC system in a number of states.

Building Opportunity III: Affirmatively furthering fair housing in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program (October 2023) Link to the report description and links to appendices.

PRRAC Publications and Research Summaries

How States’ Low Income Housing Tax Credit Allocation Plans Can Help Increase Students’ Access to Integrated, Well-Resourced Schools (October 2024)
Social Housing Goals in State Housing Allocation Plans — A 50-State Survey (December 2023)
What can the Treasury Department do to expand public and community ownership of rental housing? (December 2023)
Building Opportunity III: Affirmatively furthering fair housing in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program (October 2023 Update)
Housing and Educational Opportunity: Characteristics of Local Schools Near Families with Federal Housing Assistance (July 2018)
Assessment Criteria For “Concerted Community Revitalization Plans”: A Recommended Framework (March 2017)
Suggested changes to the draft LIHTC reform bill, to the United States Senate Committee on Finance (February 2017)
Building Opportunity II: Civil Rights Best Practices in the LIHTC Program (2015 Update)
Annotated bibliography on the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (articles and reports from 2009-2014, updating annotated bibliography in our 2008 “Building Opportunity” report)
“Continuation and Expansion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit” (May 2013)
Recommendations to LIHTC interagency working group (April 2013)
Report: Creating Balance in the Locations of LIHTC Developments: The Role of Qualified Allocation Plans (February 2013)
Accessing Opportunity: Affirmative Marketing and Tenant Selection in the LIHTC and Other Housing Programs (December 2012)
Do Federally Assisted Households Have Access to High-Performing Public Schools? (November 2012)
Opportunity and Location in Federally Subsidized Housing Programs: A New Look at HUD’s Site & Neighborhood Standard As Applied to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (October 2011)
Building Opportunity: Civil Rights Best Practices in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (An Updated Fifty-State Review of LIHTC “Qualified Allocation Plans” ) (October 2008) (with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law)
Are States Using the Low Income Tax Credit to Enable Families with Children to Live in Low Poverty and Racially Integrated Neighborhoods? A report by Jill Khadduri, Larry Buron, and Carissa Climaco, sponsored by PRRAC and the National Fair Housing Alliance (2007)
“Percentage of family LIHTC units in low-poverty neighborhoods: ranking of all large metro areas”
“Civil Rights Mandates in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program” (an advocate’s guide)(2004)

December 2016 policy announcements

In the final year of the Obama Administration, the Treasury Department, through the IRS, suggested that states should avoid exclusionary local contribution and approval requirements and incentives in their state plans, and in the process finally acknowledged that the LIHTC program is subject to the Fair Housing Act, like all other federal housing programs. Also in 2016, the IRS noted that states should include criteria defining the “concerted community revitalization plan” requirement for Qualified Allocation Plans, and the Treasury Department finally issued Title VI regulations, more than 50 years after the requirement was announced in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing in the LIHTC Program: Recent Progress (powerpoint presentation at October 2017 Housing Justice Network Conference)

Revenue Ruling 2016-29 confirms that the LIHTC statute does not require local support or contribution in state LIHTC plans (the ruling also notes that LIHTC is subject to the Fair Housing Act and its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing obligation).

Notice 2016-77 indicates that the required preference for a “Concerted Community Revitalization Plan” in projects selected in higher poverty census tracts has to be an actual plan, and must include something more than just the LIHTC project itself.

Department of Treasury final Title VI regulation implements the 1964 Civil Rights Act at the Department but omits LIHTC from the list of covered Treasury programs. The final Title VI regulation leaves open the possibility that LIHTC might be added to the list at a later date, and also states that “the absence of a program or activity from the list does not by such absence limit the applicability of Title VI to that program or activity.”