AFFH – the administrative state comes full circle: After the Trump administration‘s 2018 suspension of the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, and after civil rights groups brought a valiant but unsuccessful Administrative Procedure Act lawsuit to challenge the suspension, the Trump administration in 2020 released a hollowed out version of the rule, which was quickly withdrawn by the Biden administration in June 2021 with a partial reinstatement of the original AFFH definition. Finally, today, the Biden Administration has released a proposed new affirmatively furthering fair housing rule building on the lessons of the 2015 rule. We are grateful for this important step forward, and we look forward to submitting comments. More importantly, we look forward to the day (later this year) when the final rule goes into effect and state governments, local governments, and public housing agencies can return to meaningful fair housing planning with full accountability and oversight restored. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and HUD’s 5-page summary of the proposed rule are available here.
Magnet schools and public housing update: HUD and the Department of Education have both committed to interagency collaboration, but this is still a work in progress. As PRRAC pointed out in 2021, one area of potential collaboration is in the natural connection between public housing redevelopment and magnet school funding. Our new policy brief, “Connecting magnet schools and public housing redevelopment: January 2023 update,” highlights the progress made by both agencies – and the further steps that will be necessary to make this goal a reality.
A new NCSD research brief, “Accountability Systems and the Persistence of School Segregation: Research Evidence and Future Directions,” by James Noonan and Peter Piazza, reviews recent empirical research to consider the relationship between systems of school accountability and the persistence of school segregation, and explores how accountability systems can be refined in order to contribute to real integration.
Join us for a live performance in DC: On Friday, January 27th from 4:00-5:30pm, Learn Together, Live Together (LTLT) and the National Coalition on School Diversity (NCSD) will host a live performance and panel discussion of “Between the Lines,” a student-led play created by Epic Theatre Ensemble youth artist-researchers and commissioned by PRRAC, exploring the connection between housing policy and segregation/inequity in schools. RSVP here.
Other resources
Attack on home ownership: The new issue of HUD’s Evidence Matters looks at the increasing threat of corporate acquisition of single family homes in low income, predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods.
Nurturing spaces and integrated spaces: A powerful essay by our colleague Stefan Lallinger of the Century Foundation reflects on the challenges and benefits of integration, worth reading.
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