Overview of Dallas litigation on discriminatory Fair Market Rents (FMRs) in the Housing Choice Voucher program (2009-2014)
In ICP v. United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2009 WL 3122610 (N.D. Tex 2009) and 2009 WL 3446232 (N.D. Tex. 2009), the Inclusive Communities Project challenged HUD’s use of rent data from a 12 county area to set a single fair market rent for the Housing Choice Voucher program. These fair market rents set the amount of subsidy that will be paid to the landlord on behalf of the voucher family. HUD had long used the rents in the low income minority concentrated areas to set the rents for the entire multi-county region. This made most of the units in those low income minority concentrated areas available for vouchers while severely limiting the availability of units in the predominantly White, high opportunity areas.
