Biden’s latest whack at the suburbs will change your neighborhood for the worse

The goal of “fair housing” seems to be quite simple. As stipulated in the Fair Housing Act of 1968 – and found in brokerage offices across the country – it “excludes discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing… on the basis of race, colour, national origin, religion, sex (including sex). identity and sexual orientation), marital status and disability.” In other words, those who can afford to rent or buy should not be prevented from doing so for reasons unrelated to ability to pay.

But for the Biden administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development, fair housing is more — much more. In proposed regulations, which would affect any jurisdiction accepting any type of HUD funding, fair housing must mean a plan to “promote equity in their communities, reduce segregation, and increase access to opportunities and community assets for people of color and others.” to improve underserved communities. ”

Translated, this means: The path to the advancement of disadvantaged minorities leads through resettlement in more affluent communities where they are no longer “underserved”.

IRS ACCUSED OF USING “RATIC EQUALITY” FOR AUDITS DIRECTED AT WHITE ASIAN TAXPAYERS

The details of how this is to be done cover more than 200 pages. This includes more than 1,200 cities and counties receiving HUD funding. All are encouraged to develop “equity plans.”

Such justice could mean anything from building low-income housing to redrawing school district boundaries for racial or socioeconomic inclusion, anything as assessed by the HUD bureaucracy.

Both those concerned about the best avenues of advancement for the poor and those concerned about administrative state overdoing have reason to doubt it.

Opposition to the Affirmative Promotion of Fair Housing (AFFH) ordinances will no doubt be branded as a racist defense of white suburbs. That’s certainly how Donald Trump’s 2020 decision to suspend an earlier version of the Obama-era rules was characterized. As CNN Business put it at the time, Trump only protected neighborhoods with “above-average proportions of white households” from low-income housing.

It’s been a liberal mantra lately that children’s futures shouldn’t be determined by the zip code they grow up in – and the HUD plan aims to distribute low-income households where they’re likely to benefit from better schools and parks, which is probably the case. Municipalities are inherently incapable of providing this.

The underlying social science rationale HUD cites comes from Harvard economists Raj Chetty and Lawrence Katz, who examined data in a 1990s HUD program called Moving to Opportunity — in which a small number moved from low-income households to higher-income households.

According to HUD’s summary, “Children who move to low-poverty neighborhoods perform better in school, have greater chances of long-term success, and less intergenerational poverty.”

But the actual Harvard study is much more nuanced, while noting that “each additional year of childhood spent in a low-poverty environment appears to be beneficial,” it also notes that “for older children ( those aged 13 to 18) We find that moving to a lower poverty neighborhood has a statistically insignificant or slightly negative effect.” It is difficult to imagine the government making any effort to scale household participation based on the age of their restrict children.

More broadly, however, HUD fails to recognize that sustainable upward mobility is based on constructive life choices made at the family level—including marriage and employment. These are the building blocks of the economic gains that make moves to better neighborhoods possible. Such moves must be protected by enforcing anti-discrimination law.

The details of how this is to be done cover more than 200 pages. This includes more than 1,200 cities and counties receiving HUD funding. All are encouraged to develop “equity plans.”

In the past, it was the federal government, particularly the Federal Housing Administration, that engaged in racial discrimination by refusing to guarantee mortgages in racially-shifting neighborhoods.

HUD would lead us into a new era of color awareness in housing politics in the name of “justice” – comparable life outcomes for those making different life choices.

Don’t be surprised if the objections include the African-American, suburban middle class who worked hard and played by the rules. Their concerns were captured in a recent New York Times article on the “black flight” from racially integrated Shaker Heights, Ohio. It quoted a black librarian as saying: “There’s a group of African Americans who’ve made it and have it in common. And then there’s the group that’s still caught up in having achieved nothing. … And I come from the mindset: divest yourself of all costs from those who may still be struggling.”

Suburbs need a wide variety of non-single family home types. But they shouldn’t be forced by Washington to build new housing projects for low-income earners.

CLICK HERE TO RECEIVE THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

In addition, there is the constitutional question raised by the AFFH regulations. HUD’s lengthy proposal is based on the thinnest reed of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which, borrowing its key anti-discrimination language, directs other federal agencies “to administer their programs…concerning housing and urban development…in an affirmative manner around” the guidelines to promote the law.

Into this narrow lane, HUD drives its large, regulatory truck, with communities across the country in its path. HUD defines equity as “access to quality schools, equitable employment opportunities, reliable transportation services, parks and recreation facilities, community centers, community-based support services, law enforcement and emergency services, health services, grocery stores, retail stores, infrastructure and local government, libraries, and banking and financial institutions.”

As those familiar with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the EPA’s Clean Power Plan know, the court has become increasingly aware of regulatory requirements that go beyond the intent of the legislature.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Local jurisdictions receiving HUD funds appear to have reason to appeal the proposed rule, which would impose new requirements for receiving previously accepted funds on continent and new requirements. In 2012, the court overturned the portion of the Affordable Care Act that required states to expand Medicaid for this reason. Judges Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer agreed.)

Racial discrimination in housing is harmful. It is dangerous that Washington is invoking it to socialize neighborhoods across America.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY HOWARD HUSOCK