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Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Biennial Civil Rights & Fair Housing Gala Celebration
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Conference Assesses Positive Housing Opportunity Programs
"Connecting HUD-Assisted Renters to Opportunity"
A recent HUD report published in HUD User reports on the Bipartisan Policy Center's August, 2023 online event, “Investing in Opportunity: Rental Assistance and Neighborhoods of Choice,” featuring recent research from Opportunity Insights (OI) on the Seattle-based "Creating Moves to Opportunity" program along with a general discussion of the challenges and benefits for housing choice voucher (HCV) recipients moving to low-poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods.
OI detailed recent research showing that children's upward economic mobility varies widely across neighborhoods nationwide. Studies have also shown that moving to higher-opportunity neighborhoods at younger ages can significantly improve outcomes later in life. Considerable research demonstrates that housing location affects essential outcomes, such as income and health, for residents, and that living in low-poverty neighborhoods with high-quality schools and low crime rates is associated with increased economic mobility and other positive effects. However, housing in these neighborhoods often is unaffordable for low-income families.
Low-income families trying to access housing in high-opportunity neighborhoods face two big challenges: (1) finding a home to rent - one-third of high-opportunity neighborhoods are "rental deserts," many with exclusively or primarily single-family homes - and (2) being able to afford the rent. The assistance of counselors or coaches can help, especially when they are members or representatives of the community.
For landlords, participation in the HCV program involves additional steps and paperwork, producing delays and uncertainty. Enterprise Community Partners urged policy changes to lower the regulatory burden for landlords to participate in the program and reduce the time to lease to a voucher holder.
Programs that provide housing vouchers and also ensure that the vouchers compete with market-rate rents, lower regulatory burdens for landlords, and provide additional financial supports can help low-income renters move to opportunity neighborhoods. Seattle's "Creating Moves to Opportunity" program and programs providing mobility-related services under HUD's Community Choice Demonstration are successful at increasing opportunity for HUD-assisted renters.
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HUD Releases Historical Analysis of Place-Based & Mobility Housing Programs
"Housing Programs and Racial Segregation: The Role of Place-Based and Mobility Programs"
by Peter J. Mateyka, Survey Statistician, Housing and Demographic Analysis Division, PD&R (2023-present).
HUD User has just released a detailed historical analysis on place-based and mobility housing programs regarding the goal of racially desegregating housing.
"Overcoming racial segregation in housing is part of the Fair Housing Act of 1968's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) mandate. Over the past 50 years, the Office of Policy Development and Research's (PD&R's) work has expanded our understanding of the relationships between HUD's housing programs and racial segregation and how HUD can design housing programs that meet the AFFH mandate of overcoming segregation, promoting fair choice, and creating inclusive communities. The research and data on HUD programs and racial segregation that PD&R produces and disseminates highlight the department's successes, failures, and challenges in the pursuit of fair housing for all.
HUD’s housing programs include place-based programs and housing mobility programs, both of which take different approaches to connecting underserved households to quality housing. Place-based programs focus on community development through revitalizing distressed neighborhoods. Mobility programs provide subsidies to underserved households that allow them to move to high-opportunity neighborhoods with better employment and educational opportunities and lower crime rates. HUD’s proposed 2023 revisions to its AFFH rule incorporate both place-based and housing mobility approaches:
Affirmatively furthering fair housing can involve both bringing investments to improve the housing, infrastructure, and community assets in underserved communities as well as enabling families to seek greater opportunity by moving to areas of the community that already enjoy better community infrastructure and community assets.
This article reviews the history of PD&R's work on HUD's place-based and housing mobility initiatives and discusses how this work has enhanced our understanding of the relationship between housing policy and racial segregation and advanced the AFFH mandate's goal of reducing residential segregation.
Mobility programs provide subsidies to underserved households, allowing them to move to opportunity neighborhoods with better employment and educational chances, and lower crime."
The report concludes:
"PD&R’s work over the past 50 years has contributed to a better understanding of the relationship between housing programs and racial segregation, which has, in turn, helped HUD design place-based and housing mobility program designs that better adhere to its AFFH mandate to overcome segregation, promote fair choice, and create inclusive communities, However, declines in neighborhood racial segregation among all U.S. households have slowed in recent decades. Although recent HUD programs often have improved outcomes for neighborhoods and individuals, they have had mixed success at reducing racial segregation in public housing and increasing neighborhood integration for those receiving housing assistance. A promising development is HUD’s recent revisions to its AFFH mandate, which allows HUD to consider the role of race in the initial planning and design of housing programs. One of PD&R’s contributions to AFFH planning is supporting the development of a publicly released data tool that can help localities identify patterns of racial segregation and differences in neighborhood opportunity and incorporate this information into fair housing strategies."
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Monday, November 27, 2023
HOW TO REPORT HOUSING DISCRIMINATION WITH HUD
https://www.hud.gov/fairhousing/fileacomplaint
If you believe your rights may have been violated, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) encourages you to report housing discrimination. Because there are time limits on when an allegation can be filed with HUD after an alleged violation, you should report housing discrimination as soon as possible. When reporting housing discrimination, please provide as much information as possible, including:
- Your name and address.
- The name and address of the person(s) or organization your allegation is against.
- The address or other identification of the housing or program involved.
- A short description of the event(s) that cause you to believe your rights were violated.
- The date(s) of the alleged violation.
What is Housing Discrimination?
Discrimination under the Fair Housing Act (including housing that is privately owned and operated) is:
- Discrimination in renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or engaging in other housing-related activities.
- Discrimination on the basis of: race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status, disability).
You can Report Housing Discrimination with HUD
ONLINE in English (also available in Español, 中文, Tiếng Việt, 한국인, العربية, Русский, ខ្មែរ, and Soomaali).
BY PHONE. HUD speaks your language! Talk with a HUD intake specialist by calling: 1-800-669-9777. You can also call your regional FHEO office at the phone numbers on this list.
BY MAIL. You can print out this form (also available in Español, 繁體中文, Tiếng Việt, 한국인, عربي, Русский, ខ្មែរ, and Soomaali) and mail it to your regional HUD office at the address on this list.
Assistance for Persons with Disabilities
Assistance for Persons with Limited English Proficiency
Retaliation Is Illegal
It is illegal to retaliate against any person for making an allegation, testifying, assisting, or participating in any manner in a proceeding under HUD’s allegation process at any time, even after the investigation has been completed.
It is illegal to retaliate against any person because that person reported a discriminatory practice to a housing provider or other authority.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) also makes it illegal for a public housing agency, owner, or manager of housing assisted under a VAWA covered housing program to retaliate against someone for seeking or exercising VAWA protections for themself or another. This includes protection for people who testify, assist, or participate in any VAWA matter on their own, or another’s, behalf.
If you believe you have experienced retaliation, you should report housing discrimination!
Types of Allegations Investigated
HUD investigates allegations, which may be one or both of the following:
(1) Discrimination under the Fair Housing Act.
Additional Resources
Learn About the Reporting Process
Get Help Before Reporting Housing Discrimination
Reporting in Languages Other than English
Housing Discrimination Under the Fair Housing Act
HUD Multifamily Housing Complaints
Housing Choice Voucher and Public Housing Complaints
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Source of Information: HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
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Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Tackling Racial Inequities in Homeownership
The Urban Institute's recent landscape analysis of the racial homeownership gap - A Landscape Scan of Homeownership for Households of Color (November 2022) - found that households of color have lower homeownership rates than white households. While reasons for these racial disparities vary, "they are often attributable to differences in households’ access to financial resources and persistent racial discrimination."
On October 4, 2023, the Urban Institute and Living Cities held a conference to explore how homeownership could be made more equitable for everyone. Living Cities "is a collaborative of 19 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions working to close racial income and wealth gaps in American cities."
At the conference, local and federal government leaders discussed systemic inequity in homeownership for people of color and various innovative solutions to close these persistent homeownership gaps. Especially highlighted were the local homeownership initiatives currently being done by cities in the "Closing the Gaps’ Year of Reckoning Cohort" and existent racial equity plans by federal agencies.
While racial disparities in homeownership persist, institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and state and local governments are working to achieve greater racial equity in U.S. homeownership.
Barriers to Homeownership Equity
One conference focus was a panel focused specifically on federal barriers to homeownership for nonwhite communities. Participants included Katrina Jones, vice president of racial equity strategy and impact at Fannie Mae; Demetria McCain, principal deputy assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at HUD; Pamela Perry, vice president of single-family equitable housing at Freddie Mac; and Rekha Balu, director of federal equity initiatives at the Urban Institute.
Saving the funds needed to close on a single-family home is a major impediment for prospective first-time homebuyers in communities of color. This challenge stems from historic wealth inequities that diminish generational wealth. Additional obstacles to equity include insufficient access to credit disproportionately impacting Black and Latino families and high rental housing costs sap families' efforts to save money toward a downpayment. Most renters' on-time rental payments are not reported to credit bureaus, reducing their credit scores and lessening their ability to qualify for a mortgage at a favorable rate. One solution could be to increase an applicant's credit score by 60 points and make them eligible for prime financing rather than a subprime loan.
Even among homeowners, inequities persist. A homeowner's race often affects assessments of home values is attested by the approximately 200 active appraisal discrimination cases HUD is managing. Scammers have targeted communities, such as Black and Caribbean homeowners in New York, and defrauded them out of their titles, according to HUD.
Possible Solutions to Inequity
Important solutions proposed included:
(1) Efforts to bridge the gap between aggregate and abstract data and families’ on-the-ground, anecdotal experiences. Jones described efforts at Fannie Mae to create fictional personas to illustrate the specific barriers different groups of people face in their journeys toward homeownership; these personas, created from housing data and research reports, help make housing challenges more comprehensible and less abstract. The personas give researchers at Fannie Mae analytic clarity to better understand how different groups’ challenges in the journey to homeownership intersect and differ. According to Jones, this approach offers a powerful way to bridge the gap between individual experience and aggregate data to drive tailored policy changes through the organization’s Equitable Housing Finance Plan.
(2) The panelists pointed out that real estate professionals can also make improvements. For example, diversifying the home appraisal industry can help reduce racial appraisal gaps. Perry described a partnership among Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Appraisal Institute (a professional organization that educates, credentials, and develops ethical standards for real estate appraisers) to hold recruiting events and increase scholarship and mentorship opportunities to diversify the profession. McCain added that Mississippi, which had scored poorly on a national assessment of diversity among home appraisers, responded by creating a program to recruit and train a more diverse cohort of appraisers.
(3) Special purpose credit programs, which target credit to historically underserved communities and communities living with the legacies of past discrimination, can also help alleviate homeownership inequities. McCain stated that HUD has found that special purpose credit programs for real estate loans or credit assistance are permissible and has advocated for their expansion to help promote homeownership equity. Perry pointed out that the U.S. has historically promoted homeownership through generous mortgage programs, noting that in the 1950s, many white families took advantage of favorable lending terms that facilitated first-time home purchases - opportunities denied to families of color, which has contributed to the inequities of the present. Jones added that similar credit programs today that require lower downpayments or offer homeownership counseling remain useful tools for promoting homeownership, this time for those who had previously been excluded.
(4) A sustained focus on identifying barriers to homeownership and a commitment to implementing solutions are showing how organizations can help homebuyers overcome longstanding housing inequities. The ongoing challenge, said panelists, is bringing these and other solutions to maturity and to scale.
Read the November 14, 2023 PD&R Edge article.
Friday, November 10, 2023
KeyBank Provided Less Loans to Black And Low-Income Homebuyers in 2022
A National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) analysis of the most recent federal data on mortgage lending has found that Black borrowers were 2.6% of the Cleveland-based bank’s home purchase mortgage lending in 2022, down from 3% in 2021. KeyBank has provided fewer percentage of its loans to Blacks each year since 2018, when 6.5% were to Blacks.
In 2022, KeyBank made 19.2% of its home purchase loans to low- and moderate-income (LMI) borrowers, down from 19.7% in 2021. In 2018 more than 38% of such KeyBank loans went to an LMI borrower. Other top lenders made more than 30% of their 2022 purchase mortgages to LMI borrowers and about 7% of them to Black borrowers.
This performance by KeyBank is "counter to the spirit of the agreement it made with community leaders while seeking clearance for a merger in 2016," as a report NCRC published last year documented. From 2018 to 2022, the Bank's executives hiked shareholder dividends using the new profits from the merger. NCRC's 2022 report detailed KeyBank’s failure in serving low and moderate-income (LMI) and Black borrowers within the communities it pledged to assist. KeyBank in 2016 signed a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the NCRC and various community groups representing those same borrowers’ interests across the U.S. The deal was instrumental in satisfying legal and regulatory requirements in KeyBank’s merger with First Niagara Bank.
By 2021, KeyBank had become the worst major mortgage lender for Black borrowers. NCRC cut ties with KeyBank after discovering the bank’s lower performance regarding Black and LMI borrowers, and notified regulators that the bank should receive a downgraded Community Reinvestment Act rating. The Bank first released "misleading and inaccurate responses asserting it had not done what the numbers show, it was later forced to commission a racial equity audit once shareholders applied pressure."