We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS: HUD'S LOST OPPORTUNITIES TO FURTHER FAIR HOUSING.
- Authors
Rees Brown, Emily
- Abstract
This Article examines important yet rarely discussed barriers to dismantling residential segregation in the United States: federal regulations that prevent recipients of federal housing dollars from productively engaging the private sector and effectively navigating the private housing market. These U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations are among today's greatest impediments to affirmatively furthering fair housing. Indeed, they go as far as to render the creation of subsidized housing in desegregated neighborhoods untenable, and they help funnel new subsidized housing units into the same distressed, segregated neighborhoods that have historically contained the bulk of low-income housing. This Article builds upon research and literature that examines why segregated housing patterns remain stark and seemingly intractable nearly fifty years after the Fair Housing Act (FHA), and why most subsidized housing is located in areas of highly concentrated poverty long after Congress mandated that federal housing dollars be used in a way that affirmatively furthers fair housing. Crucial to my account is the recognition that federal housing policy, discrimination, and sociopolitical and economic forces have maintained and reinforced residential segregation--compounding inequality for black Americans especially. Meanwhile, sustainable, strategies to create affordable and public housing in areas that offer access to quality education, jobs, transportation, healthcare, and safety have been conspicuously missing from federal housing policy. In light of this deficiency, affordable housing in areas of opportunity has been on the decline for decades. And filling this housing gap will require major regulatory reform at the national level. The federal regulatory obstacles to affirmatively furthering fair housing are particularly ironic in light of several facts. First, HUD has steadily increased its emphasis on private delivery of public housing since the early 1970s, and today it is nearly impossible to produce any housing--let alone housing in low-poverty neighborhoods-- without the cooperation of private actors, yet HUD's regulatory scheme actively disincentivizes private partnerships. Second, the Obama administration finalized a long-awaited regulation in July 2015 that aims to better enforce the requirements of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing provision (AFFH) of the FHA among recipients. But the new regulation is silent as to any actions HUD itself will take to help recipients increase the production of publicly-supported housing in opportunity areas. Third, though the Trump administration has not prioritized repealing the AFFH rule., Housing and Urban Development Secretary Carson has described the rule as "social engineering" and has taken issue with it as an imposition on local governments. At the very least, this signals a lack of enforcement commitment, on the part of the new administration. But this Article argues that even with effective enforcement, the AFFH's emphasis on local accountability was misplaced, Instead, HUD should focus on regulatory and programmatic reforms that will greatly expand acquisition options for recipients, enable more successful public-private partnerships, and expand housing and neighborhood choice and economic opportunity for residents. And because they are grounded in streamlining regulations, leveraging the private sector, and increasing economic mobility for residents, there is no justifiable reason the new Republican administration should reject the proposals put forth in this Article.
- Subjects
UNITED States; HOUSING discrimination laws; UNITED States. Dept. of Housing &; Urban Development; PUBLIC-private sector cooperation; FAIR Housing Act of 1968 (U.S.); TEXAS Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project (Supreme Court case)
- Publication
Lewis & Clark Law Review, 2017, Vol 21, Issue 3, p735
- ISSN
1557-6582
- Publication type
Article