• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Press Room
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • Donate
  • Publications
    • PRRAC Publications & PRRAC Authors
    • PRRAC Policy Briefs
    • PRRAC Advocacy Resources
    • PRRAC Advocacy Letters
  • Events
  • Contact

PRRAC — Connecting Research to Advocacy

Poverty & Race Research Action Council

MENUMENU
  • Fair Housing
    • Fair Housing Homepage
    • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
    • Housing Mobility & the Housing Choice Voucher Program
    • Source of Income Discrimination
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
    • Fair Housing and Community Development
    • Civil Rights and Housing Finance Reform
    • Federal Housing Advocacy – Other Programs
  • Social Housing
  • School Diversity
    • School Diversity
    • National Coalition on School Diversity Website
  • Housing-Schools Intersections
  • Special Projects
    • Civil Rights History
    • Civil Rights & The Administrative State
    • Environmental Justice
    • International Human Rights and U.S. Civil Rights Policy
    • PRRAC In the Courts
    • Title VI Repository
  • Search
    • Search

You are here: Home / Advocacy Documents / Letter Urging SEMAP and SAFMR Expansion (May, 2023)

Letter Urging SEMAP and SAFMR Expansion (May, 2023)

May 12, 2023 by

May 12, 2023

Marcia Fudge, Secretary
Adrienne Todman, Deputy Secretary
Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street SW
Washington, DC 20410

Dear Secretary Fudge and Deputy Secretary Todman,

As national civil rights and housing advocacy organizations deeply committed to fair housing, we are writing today to urge you to follow through on important regulatory reforms in HUD’s largest housing program, the Housing Choice Voucher program, to advance that program’s largely unrealized promise to affirmatively further fair housing and expand housing choices for low income families, the majority of whom are people of color.1

We understand that two long overdue civil rights advances in the voucher program are currently pending at the HUD – reforms to the Section 8 Management Assessment Program (SEMAP) and the scheduled expansion of the Small Area Fair Market Rent (SAFMR) program. Some of us have participated in “listening sessions” held by HUD on of both these pending programs, but we want to take this opportunity to further underscore the importance of these two programs in advancing civil rights and housing justice for the families you serve. As we will note below, both SEMAP and the expansion of the Small Area FMR program are necessary to meet HUD’s obligations to affirmatively further fair housing in the voucher program.

First, the SEMAP regulation: Based on the listening sessions held by HUD last year, we understand that HUD is finally considering, in the annual review of public housing agency (PHA) performance, a) progress in reducing voucher concentration (the proportion of families living in higher poverty neighborhoods) and b) progress in increasing the proportion of families who are able to access lower poverty neighborhoods, as mandatory factors in grading PHA performance. These measures are particularly important for programs located in metropolitan areas, where racial and economic segregation are often recognizable characteristics of the voucher program, and where voucher holders often struggle to use their vouchers to rent apartments in high-opportunity neighborhoods. Accountability for locational outcomes is crucial, especially for PHAs that take little responsibility for their fair housing obligations and continue, year after year, with policies and practices that steer families to high poverty, segregated neighborhoods. The Housing Choice Voucher program is supposed to provide real choice, and to affirmatively promote fair housing. Recent research has confirmed the long term benefits for families who move from higher to lower poverty neighborhoods,2 and confirmed that many families are indeed interested in making these moves.3 SEMAP is a crucial accountability mechanism to encourage PHAs to provide these opportunities. We recognize that metropolitan PHAs have different areas of operations and different regional contexts – but these differences shouldn’t matter if PHAs are measured on their annual progress in helping families access lower poverty, often higher-opportunity neighborhoods, with significant

Link to the letter

Filed Under: Advocacy Documents, Advocacy Letters, Housing Choice Voucher Mobility, Section 8 Voucher Reform, Section 8 Voucher Reform Advocacy Letters

You might also like…

Housing Choice Voucher Reform: A Primer for 2021 and Beyond (Philip Tegeler, August 2020)
Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)

Primary Sidebar

PRRAC Updates

PRRAC Update (May 15, 2025) Join us for the 10th National Conference on Housing Mobility!

PRRAC Update (May 1, 2025): Protecting HUD’s affirmative marketing requirements

PRRAC Update (April 17, 2025): Poverty & Race special issue on transportation equity

Previous Updates...

PRRAC in the News

Ballot measure seeks to end discrimination based on source of rental income in Lincoln, Nebraska

April 16, 2025

What Trump’s DEI Orders Could Mean for Housing

February 21, 2025

Make Your State’s Housing Affordable Forever With This One Weird Trick

September 12, 2024

Home Elusive Home: Low-income Lincoln renters often turned away

July 17, 2024

Previous Posts...

Poverty & Race Journal

Footer

PRRAC – Poverty & Race Research Action Council

The Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) is a civil rights law and policy organization based in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to promote research-based advocacy strategies to address structural inequality and disrupt the systems that disadvantage low-income people of color. PRRAC was founded in 1989, through an initiative of major civil rights, civil liberties, and anti-poverty groups seeking to connect advocates with social scientists working at the intersection of race and poverty…Read More

Archives

Resources at PRRAC

  • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing
  • Environmental Justice
  • Fair Housing
  • Fair Housing & Community Development
  • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • PRRAC Update
  • School Diversity
  • Housing Choice Voucher Mobility
  • PRRAC in The Courts

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in var _ctct_m = "7608c7e98e90af7d6ba8b5fd4d901424"; //static.ctctcdn.com/js/signup-form-widget/current/signup-form-widget.min.js

PRRAC — Connecting Research to AdvocacyLogo Header Menu

  • Fair Housing
    • Fair Housing Homepage
    • Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH)
    • Housing Mobility & the Housing Choice Voucher Program
    • Source of Income Discrimination
    • Low Income Housing Tax Credit
    • Fair Housing and Community Development
    • Civil Rights and Housing Finance Reform
    • Federal Housing Advocacy – Other Programs
  • Social Housing
  • School Diversity
    • School Diversity
    • National Coalition on School Diversity Website
  • Housing-Schools Intersections
  • Special Projects
    • Civil Rights History
    • Civil Rights & The Administrative State
    • Environmental Justice
    • International Human Rights and U.S. Civil Rights Policy
    • PRRAC In the Courts
    • Title VI Repository
  • Search
  • About
  • Press Room
  • Poverty & Race Journal
  • Donate
  • Publications
    • PRRAC Publications & PRRAC Authors
    • PRRAC Policy Briefs
    • PRRAC Advocacy Resources
    • PRRAC Advocacy Letters
  • Events
  • Contact