THORAX
Active Member
- Jul 22, 2013
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Here is the actual proposed rule
Regulations.gov
Summary
Through this rule, HUD proposes to provide HUD program participants with more effective means to affirmatively further the purposes and policies of the Fair Housing Act, which is Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The Fair Housing Act not only prohibits discrimination but, in conjunction with other statutes, directs HUD's program participants to take steps proactively to overcome historic patterns of segregation, promote fair housing choice, and foster inclusive communities for all. As acknowledged by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and many stakeholders, advocates, and program participants, the current practice of affirmatively furthering fair housing carried out by HUD grantees, which involves an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice and a certification that the grantee will affirmatively further fair housing, has not been as effective as had been envisioned. This rule accordingly proposes to refine existing requirements with a fair housing assessment and planning process that will better aid HUD program participants fulfill this statutory obligation and address specific comments the GAO raised. To facilitate this new approach, HUD will provide states, local governments, insular areas, and public housing agencies (PHAs), as well as the communities they serve, with data on patterns of integration and segregation; racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty; access to education, employment, low-poverty, transportation, and environmental health, among other critical assets; disproportionate housing needs based on the classes protected under the Fair Housing Act; data on individuals with disabilities and families with children; and discrimination. From these data, program participants will evaluate their present environment to assess fair housing issues, identify the primary determinants that account for those issues, and set forth fair housing priorities and goals. The benefit of this approach is that these priorities and goals will then better inform program participant's strategies and actions by improving the integration of the assessment of fair housing through enhanced coordination with current planning exercises. This proposed rule further commits HUD to greater engagement and better guidance for program participants in fulfilling their obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. With this new clarity through guidance, a template for the assessment, and a HUD-review process, program participants should achieve more meaningful outcomes that affirmatively further fair housing.
Summary of the Major Provisions of the Rule
The proposed rulein concert with other HUD policiesis structured to provide direction, guidance, and procedures for program participants to promote fair housing choice. The rule promotes these objectives and responds to the GAO's observations by:
a. Refining the current requirement that program participants complete an Analysis of Impediments (AI) with a more effective and standardized Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH), through which program participants would evaluate fair housing challenges and goals using regional and national benchmarks and data tools to facilitate the measurements of trends and changes over time;
b. Improving fair housing assessment, planning, and decision-making by providing data that program participants must consider in their AFHs, thereby aiding program participants establish fair housing goals to address these issues and concerns;
c. Incorporating, explicitly, fair housing planning into existing planning processes, the consolidated plan and PHA Annual Plan, which in turn incorporates fair housing priorities and concerns more effectively into housing, community development, land-use, and other decision-making that influences how communities and regions grow and develop;
d. Encouraging and facilitating regional approaches to addressing fair housing issues, including effective incentives for collaboration across jurisdictions and PHAs, and incorporation of fair housing planning into regionally significant undertakings, such as major public infrastructure investments;
e. Bringing people historically excluded because of characteristics protected by the Fair Housing Act into full and fair participation in decisions about the appropriate uses of HUD funds and other investments, through a requirement to conduct community participation as an integral part of program participants' AFHs; and
f. Establishing an approach to affirmatively further fair housing that calls for coordinated efforts to combat illegal housing discrimination, so that individuals and families can make decisions about where to live, free from discrimination, with necessary information regarding housing options, and with adequate support to make their choices viable.
Through these improvements, the rule seeks to make program participants more empowered to foster the diversity and strength of communities and regions by improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation, reducing racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty, and responding to identified disproportionate housing needs of persons protected by the Fair Housing Act. The rule also seeks to assist program participants in reducing disparities in access to key community assets based on race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability, thereby improving economic competitiveness and quality of life.
HUD intends the guidance, data, tools, and procedural improvements provided under this proposed rule to reduce the current data collection burden on program participants. HUD will provide technical assistance and guidance that will allow program participants to spend less time gathering information and more time engaged in conversation with the community regarding the most effective means of advancing their fair housing goals. In addition, HUD is facilitating the integration of previously separate planning processes into a single planning process, to the extent feasible, both to streamline the work that program participants undertake and to support the weaving of fair housing values throughout housing and community development decision-making. Under this new process, program participants will submit assessments on a regular schedule and HUD will review them. In addition to achieving more meaningful fair housing outcomes through direct alignment with related planning and investment processes, HUD expects that the clarity and explicit direction provided by the proposed rule should help program participants comply with their affirmatively furthering fair housing responsibilities. One of HUD's aspirations for the proposed rule is that it will reduce the risk of litigation for program participants. Moreover, HUD's commitment to be an ongoing partner in the process should result submissions that meet the standards for analysis that the proposed rule seeks to establish.Summary of Costs and Benefits
As detailed in the Regulatory Impact Analysis (found at Regulations.gov under the docket number 5173-P-01-RIA), HUD does not expect a large aggregate change in compliance costs for program participants as a result of the proposed rule. As a result of increased emphasis on affirmatively furthering fair housing within the planning process, there may be increased compliance costs for some program participants, while for others the improved process and goal-setting, combined with HUD's provision of foundational data, is likely to decrease compliance costs. Program participants are currently required to engage in outreach and collect data in order to meet the obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. As more fully addressed in the Regulatory Impact Analysis that accompanies this rule, HUD estimates net annual compliance costs in the range of $3 to $9 million.
Further, HUD believes that the rule has the potential for substantial benefitfor program participants and the communities they serve. The rule would improve the fair housing planning process by providing greater clarity to the steps that program participants undertake to meaningfully affirmatively further fair housing, and at the same time provide better resources for program participants to use in taking such steps, hopefully resulting in increased compliance and fewer instances of litigation. Through this rule, HUD commits to provide states, local governments, PHAs, the communities they serve, and the general public with local and regional data on patterns of integration, racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, access to key community assets, and disproportionate housing needs based on classes protected by the Fair Housing Act. From these data, program participants should be better able to evaluate their present environment to assess fair housing issues, identify the primary determinants that account for those issues, set forth fair housing priorities and goals, and document these activities.
The rule covers program participants that are subject to a great diversity of local preferences and economic and social contexts across American communities and regions. For these reasons, HUD recognizes there is significant uncertainty associated with quantifying outcomes of the process, proposed by this rule, to identify barriers to fair housing, the priorities of program participants in deciding which barriers to address, the types of policies designed to address those barriers, and the effects of those policies on protected classes. In brief, because of the diversity of communities and regions across the Nation and the resulting uncertainty of precise outcomes of the proposed AFFH planning process, HUD cannot quantify the benefits and costs of polices influenced by the rule. HUD is confident, however, that the rule will create a process that allows for each jurisdiction to not only undertake meaningful fair housing planning, but to have capacity and a well-considered strategy to implement actions to affirmatively further fair housing.
What I want to know is how they're going to force us to live with ghetto trash.
You can't force people to live some place they don't want to.