National Mortgage News, July 2, 2020: Trump tweet about fair housing law enrages advocates
On the night of June 30, President Trump tweeted that he may terminate the Affirmatively Further Fair Housing Rule.
Presumably, the tweet references the 2015 regulation and not the rollback proposed by the Trump administration, which guts the measure by omitting race entirely.
The AFFH was a part of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. While written into the law 52 years ago, it was difficult to interpret or enforce until the Obama administration created the 2015 regulation. That legislation added steps for enforcing accountability at local levels to break up segregated housing patterns and overcome past redlining practices.
“Americans are in the streets protesting police brutality and what it represents: systemic racism, profound inequality and the brutality of poverty that began with slavery,” said Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “And now the president tweets a threat to end one of the most important pieces of civil rights legislation, and one of the few tools we have to rectify the horrors and massive injustices of past, legalized housing discrimination and segregation. Trump’s threat is a dog whistle to people who want segregation and racial injustices to go on forever.”
