Secretary Scott Turner
Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20410
Re: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, [Docket No. FR-6519-I-01], 90 FR 11020
May 2, 2025
Dear Secretary Turner:
The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) appreciates the opportunity to submit written comments to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) about its 2025 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Interim Final Rule (IFR). We ask that you rescind the 2025 AFFH IFR and reinstate the 2021 AFFH IFR. The 2025 AFFH IFR greatly weakens municipalities’ ability to affirmatively further fair housing appropriately and effectively.
NCRC is a network of more than 700 community-based organizations dedicated to creating a nation that not only promises but delivers opportunities for all Americans to build wealth and attain a high quality of life. We work with community leaders and policymakers to advance solutions and build the will to solve America’s persistent racial and socio-economic wealth, income, and opportunity divides, and to make a Just Economy a national priority and a local reality.
The 2025 AFFH IFR improperly defines AFFH as well as fair housing; and portrays addressing protected classes’ specific housing needs that discrimination likely caused as providing “preferences based on racial or ethnic characteristics,” instead of redress.[1]
Moreover, it merely requires grantees to certify that they will affirmatively further fair housing and does not mention whether HUD will provide municipalities with technical assistance, data, or tools, to help them affirmatively further fair housing.[2] In addition, the 2025 AFFH IFR makes no reference to a robust community engagement process that allows average Americans to share their needs with their respective municipalities and, as a result, informs municipalities’ advocacy for much needed resources at the community level.
The 2025 AFFH IFR defines Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing as “any action rationally related to promoting any attribute or attributes of fair housing,” and fair housing as housing that is “safe, decent, free of unlawful discrimination, and accessible as required under civil rights laws.”[3] This shallow definition of AFFH does not explain municipalities’ duties to AFFH under the Fair Housing Act. By contrast, the 2021 AFFH IFR defines AFFH as “taking meaningful actions” to “address significant disparities in housing needs” and “access to opportunity.”[4] It encourages the replacement of “segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns,” thereby, “transforming racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity,” and “fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.”[5]
Under the auspices of the Fair Housing Act, AFFH operates as a planning process that requires states, municipalities, and other jurisdictions to take meaningful steps to address how housing discrimination is an impediment to housing choice; to assess how racial residential segregation prevents Americans from having equal access to resources; and to aid reinvestment in divested communities.[6] AFFH helps jurisdictions develop housing plans based on local need through conducting research and engaging the public. AFFH equips communities with the tools to analyze their own barriers and craft strategies that meet all residents’ needs. In short, AFFH helps communities create locally driven solutions. AFFH ensures that data and inclusive input informs these solutions, and that these solutions are accountable to fair housing goals.
Therefore, the 2025 AFFH IFR contradicts the definition and purpose of AFFH.
A lack of rigorous oversight and guidance for enforcing the Fair Housing Act will likely result in many Americans being deprived of access to affordable housing, education, eviction protection, and connecting affordable housing to transit. Enforcing the Fair Housing Act will ensure indispensable reinvestment in American communities, and therefore the American Economy. We urge HUD to strongly consider this position and choose to strengthen, not weaken AFFH, and the subsequent enforcement of the Fair Housing Act.
We urge HUD to create a comprehensive fair housing policy that:
- Combats Discrimination that Deprives the American Economy of Trillions of Dollars
- Restores a Meaningful Community Engagement Process to Ensure Americans’ Ability to Advocate for Reinvestment in Their Communities
- Pursue an Interim Final Rule IFR and Final Rule That Do Not Weaken the Economy
- Affirms HUD’s and the Fair Housing Act’s Mission
Comments and Recommendations
I. The AFFH IFR Rule Will Exacerbate Economic Uncertainty
A core component of HUD’s mission is to “strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers.”[7] This IFR’s failure to help Americans procure precious resources will fail to fortify the economy at best and could exacerbate predatory economic conditions that plague many Americans’ lives, at worst. A lack of affordable housing with its roots dating back to the Great Recession has been exacerbated by private equity’s voracious appetite for single-family homes, lack of affordable housing construction, and landlords using algorithmic software to inflate rents above market value all likely contributes to the dire homelessness crisis this nation experiences.
A. HUD’s Inaction Could Exacerbate the Affordable Housing Shortage
Failing to enforce AFFH fully can only worsen the affordable housing crisis, which has its roots in the aftermath of the Great Recession, which lasted from 2007 to 2009.[8] As millions of homeowners had their homes foreclosed and were forced to become renters, their abrupt entrance into the rental housing market caused the demand for rental properties to soar.[9] Increased demand coupled with developers’ struggle to meet demand and their ultimate focus on luxury rental housing caused rental prices to skyrocket.[10] Around this same time, homeownership also grew increasingly unattainable for many Americans due to a drop in the construction of single-family homes.[11]
The Modern-Day Affordable Housing Shortage
Since the Great Recession, the affordable rental housing crisis has continued to worsen. According to a March 2025 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), there is a shortage of 7.1 million affordable and available rental homes for the nation’s 10.9 million extremely low-income renter households.[12] That statistic translates to a scarce supply of affordable housing; more specifically, there are only “35 affordable and available homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households.”[13]
Furthermore, cuts to HUD funding combined with our observation that neglecting to enforce fully AFFH can only exacerbate this dearth of affordable housing. The NLIHC underscored this dichotomy in its March 2025 testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Housing ad Insurance. In its testimony, the NLIHC testimony underscored how the shortage of affordable rental homes for low-income renters is due to “market failures” and chronic underfunding; they noted that federal subsidies must help more low-income renters afford housing.[14] Unfortunately, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 provides less funding to critical programs that would mitigate this crisis.[15] The Act allocates approximately $32 billion to renew contracts under tenant-based rental assistance (also known as Section 8).[16] This is $4 billion less than the current Administration’s request of $36 billion.[17] This budget cut could cause 230,000 households to lose their assistance.[18] These actions combined with HUD’s reluctance to help hardworking Americans use AFFH to address their housing issues will cause Americans to lose access to affordable housing.
B. HUD’s Inaction Will Aid Private Equity in Outbidding First-Time Homebuyers
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, private investors’ purchase of single-family homes may have made it difficult for more first-time homebuyers to become homeowners.[19] In the early 2010s, private investors purchased foreclosed homes and converted the homes into rental housing to meet increased demand for said housing.[20] According to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), they often purchased homes in cash, which helped them outbid small investors and individual buyers.[21] Estimates vary on how much of the single-family rental housing market they owned and by what date. However, according to GAO’s analysis of publicly available information, by the end of 2022, five of the country’s largest investors owned roughly 300,000 houses or almost 2% of the nation’s available single-family rental home inventory.[22] Several states including New York, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington have introduced legislation to limit private equity’s ability to make it more difficult for Americans to buy or rent homes and do so at an affordable rate.[23] If HUD does not help Americans use AFFH to address private equity’s role in causing Americans’ access to affordable housing to dwindle, private equity will continue to outbid average Americans’ — especially first-time homebuyers’ — efforts to own homes, and therefore part of the American Dream.
C. Real Page’s Role in Making Rents Soar Above Market Value Creates Real Problems for Renters
Besides institutional investors expelling aspiring homeowners from the single-family housing market into the rental market after the Great Recession and causing rents to increase, another factor may contribute to rental housing becoming more unaffordable — an algorithmic software company called RealPage. As NCRC has previously written, RealPage is an algorithmic software company that landlords can use to raise rents higher than their normal rate without this software.[24] In an August 2024 lawsuit, the Department of Justice (DOJ) accused RealPage of engaging in a 21st century price fixing scheme to raise rents nationwide.[25] According to the lawsuit, RealPage encourages landlords to share tenants’ private information such as rent, lease terms, and move-in dates to train its algorithm to produce daily rent recommendations for each landlord’s available units.[26] In turn, RealPage provides several opportunities for landlords to share this private information in several spheres including monthly meetings where they can share “competitively sensitive topics,” such as “pricing amenities.”[27]
Even when landlords have vacant apartments, the software encourages landlords to rent these apartments at higher, not lower prices. If landlords try to refuse these higher rent recommendations, they must justify why they declined those recommendations.[28] If the pricing advisor disagrees with the landlord’s justification, they can escalate the matter to the property manager’s supervisor, who they often pressure to accept RealPage’s price recommendations.[29] Landlords’ use of RealPage has had harrowing consequences for the country’s approximately 45 million renters since the company controls 80% of the commercial revenue management software market and, according to an article from The Washburn Law Journal, its clients control almost 90% of the market for multifamily rental housing units.[30] According to that same The Washburn Law Journal article, RealPage has caused rents to soar 3-7% higher than “competitive levels.”[31] The August 2024 DOJ lawsuit identified several markets where landlords’ use of RealPage harmed competition (i.e., the natural functioning of healthy markets) and subsequently renters.[32] Some of these markets include but are not limited to: Washington, DC; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and Nashville, Tennessee.[33] If HUD does not help Americans promote rental affordability using AFFH as a pipeline, fewer Americans could have access to safe and decent housing.
D. America’s Homeless Crisis
If left untreated, the affordable housing crisis will ultimately worsen America’s troubling homelessness crisis. The 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress, estimates that on a single night in 2024, the number of unhoused Americans was the highest ever recorded — 771,480 people.[34] In other words, about 23 out of 10,000 people in the United States do not have a place they can call home.[35] Many Americans are one major life event away from homelessness like losing their job, getting sick, getting evicted, or having their house foreclosed.
Moreover, several protected classes under the Fair Housing Act comprise the country’s homeless population. Of the 771,480 individuals who experienced homelessness on a given night in 2024, 259,473 are people in families with children.[36] Black people are overrepresented amongst the homeless population at approximately 32%.[37]
The 2024 AHAR identified several factors that contributed to the highest-ever recorded homeless rate in a single night of 771,480 people.[38] They include rising inflation, stagnating wages for middle-class and working-class households, the persistent effects of systemic racism, and of course, the nation’s chronic affordable housing crisis; all these factors have exhausted the nation’s homeless shelters.[39]
If HUD does nothing to moderate the homeless crisis its own report identified, then this epidemic will worsen, and many more Americans will suffer.
II. AFFH Can Reduce the Damage that Discrimination Causes the Economy
HUD’s 2025 AFFH IFR erroneously frames defending the rights of Americans who are members of protected classes as harming Americans who are not members of protected classes; this is a false dichotomy because protecting the millions of Americans who are members of protected classes from discrimination will not harm anyone; instead, it will help all Americans prosper economically. HUD’s 2025 AFFH IFR states that under the Fair Housing Act, HUD should prevent discrimination, “based on all protected classes,” and should not, “provide preferences based on racial or ethnic characteristics.”[40] The phrase, “preferences,” implies that protected classes could receive some sort of housing or economic advantage that non-protected classes would not receive. Moreover, framing redress as giving preferences to racial and ethnic groups depicts them as an autocratic minority of Americans.
In actuality, significant portions of the American population comprise the protected classes. According to the 2023 Census Bureau QuickFacts, approximately 335 million people live in the United States.[41] Of the total population, a little more than ½ are women (approx. 169 million), about 41.6% are people of color (approx. 139 million), about 70 million adults are disabled, and of a total of approximately 131 million households, 84 million are families.[42] Several of the protected classes intersect, but their overlap does not diminish their numerical significance since discrimination against members of these groups comes at a significant cost to the American Economy.
A. Discrimination Costs the Economy Trillions of Dollars and Millions of Jobs
It is imperative that HUD recommend that communities use AFFH to lessen the harm that discrimination causes the protected classes in lost income and consumer spending, and subsequently the American Economy. Reports published in 2020, 2021, and 2025 highlight the pernicious effects of such discrimination:
- According to a 2020 report from Citigroup, over a 20-year period between 2000 and 2020, unequal access to housing credit may have deprived 770,000 Black people of homeownership and the nation of $218 billion in subsequent “sales and expenditures.”[43]
- A 2021 report from McKinsey & Company notes that if Latinos were not underpaid and wage parity was achieved, Latino spending power would increase by $660 billion each year.[44]
- The same 2021 McKinsey & Company report states that the wage disparity between White and Latino workers causes Latinos to be underpaid $288 billion annually.[45]
- Between 2000 and 2020, the wage gap between Black and White Americans deprived the nation of $2.7 trillion in income that could have been invested or spent on consumer goods.[46]
- A March 2025 publication from The National Partnership for Women and Families contends that in 2023, women earned only 75 cents for every dollar that men earned, or up to $14,170 throughout the year.[47]
- On average, the gender wage gap causes American women as a collective to lose $1.7 trillion annually.[48]
- If the gender wage gap was eliminated, American women workers would be able to afford several commodities, such as almost 15 additional months of childcare; almost a year and a half of food; 7 more months of mortgage and utility payments; and more than 10 months of rent.[49]
- If sales at Latino-owned companies were equivalent to sales at White-owned companies, Latino businesses would generate an additional $2.3 trillion in revenue each year.[50]
- Discriminatory lending against African American entrepreneurs may have cost the country $13 trillion in business revenue and 6.1 million jobs annually.[51]
- The 2020 Citigroup report also notes that if the country took meaningful actions to address anti-Black racism, $5 trillion could have been added to the GDP between 2020 and 2025.[52]
- Women’s loss of $1.7 trillion annually has dealt a huge blow to the GDP considering that by the end of 2020, the GDP was approximately $21 trillion.[53]
Due to the damage that discrimination does to the economy, HUD must use AFFH to curb discrimination since it harms all Americans’ economic interests.
III. Restore a Meaningful Community Engagement Process to Ensure Americans’ Ability to Advocate for Reinvestment in Their Communities
The current IFR makes no reference to and therefore, does not require grantees to promote fair housing by providing meaningful community engagement to allow Americans to advocate for reinvestment in their communities. As written, the IFR only requires grantees to certify that they will AFFH, makes no reference to community engagement, and therefore does not require it.[54] This omission has the effect of depriving average Americans of the opportunity to advocate for resources to flow into their communities. This aspect of the AFFH IFR also fails to fulfill a critical aspect of HUD’s mission. According to HUD’s website, part of its mission is to “strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers” and use “housing as a platform for improving quality of life.”[55]
One of the most effective ways that HUD can “strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy” and advance all Americans’ economic interests is to require grantees to promote fair housing by investing in their communities.[56] Previous iterations of AFFH approached this goal through a meaningful community engagement process that empowered average Americans and community-based organizations to identify problems in their communities and propose solutions to these issues using AFFH’s planning process. PolicyLink highlights how, across the country, millions of Americans have used AFFH as a tool to advocate for critical amenities such as: high-performing schools, affordable housing near easily accessible public transportation, as well as advocate to prevent low-income tenants from being evicted without counsel.[57]
A. Right to Counsel to Help Mitigate Evictions of Low-Income People
Robust community engagement helped the City of Philadelphia identify evictions as one of residents’ primary housing concerns in its 2016 Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). Two city agencies spearheaded the city’s community engagement, which used various means to engage city residents about their housing needs over a 2 ½ month-period.[58] They included: creating informational websites about AFFH; distributing a survey to which 5,000 residents responded; conducting outreach to dozens of community groups for assistance in distributing hard copies of the survey to residents; hosting community focus groups for Spanish-speaking residents and residents with disabilities; meeting with Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) leadership to discuss AFH priorities; and employing social and traditional media to raise awareness of the public engagement process.[59] As a result of Philadelphia’s multi-pronged approach to community engagement, residents suggested providing legal representation to homeowners and tenants in foreclosure and eviction proceedings.[60]
The City of Philadelphia responded by creating a program to mitigate the number of low-income residents being evicted without counsel. In late 2019, the Philadelphia City Council passed legislation known as Right to Counsel, which provided free legal representation for low-income renters facing eviction in two zip codes.[61] To be eligible for the program, residents must earn incomes at or less than 200% below the federal poverty level.[62] The program went into effect in February 2022 and as of January 2025, it has expanded to cover eight zip codes.[63] As of the end of the 3rd program year in 2024, RTC provided legal representation or legal advice to a total of over 2,400 cases in RTC zip codes.[64]
B. AFFH as a Mechanism to Advocate for High-Performing Schools
Like Philadelphia, the City of New Orleans employed similarly robust community engagement to determine that schools were an area of improvement in their 2016 AFH. Over a 4-month period, the City of New Orleans Office of Community Development in conjunction with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, PolicyLink, Enterprise Community Partners, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law partnered with stakeholder organizations to host meetings that were open to the public and community-based organizations and asked residents to complete surveys to help inform its AFH process.[65] They also supplemented meetings with outreach to residents through print media, social media, broadcasts, and trusted community organizations.[66] Residents expressed several issues with the city’s schools including: a lack of housing near schools, a lack of high-performing schools, problems with school resources, and a need for schools to be better integrated in their communities.[67] As a result, New Orleans’ 2016 AFH listed schools high on its list of contributing factors for disparities in access to opportunity; African Americans and people with disabilities had limited access to quality public schools, most public schools lacked sufficient Limited English Proficiency services, and several lacked adequate special education services.[68]
C. AFFH Can Help Connect Affordable Housing and Transit
Beginning in 2018, The City of Chicago undertook a multi-year regional effort to AFFH across Cook County, Illinois, and part of that process involved responding substantively to residents’ identification of a lack of affordable housing near transit as an impediment to housing choice.[69] As part of this multi-year process, in 2021, The City’s community engagement included but was not limited to: nearly 60 engagement events, surveys of 446 residents, in-depth interviews with 21 individuals who faced housing discrimination or instability.[70] Over several years, some Cook County residents identified a spatial mismatch between affordable housing and transit.[71] In other words, there was a lack of affordable housing near transit as an impediment to housing choice.[72] Officials responded to this spatial mismatch by enacting a July 2022 ordinance that included new zoning updates to help prioritize affordable housing development near transit.[73]
Removing required community engagement with local communities from the AFFH regulation is tantamount to depriving average, hardworking Americans of a critical apparatus to interact directly with a federal program to receive resources for their community at a time when Americans have substantive concerns about the federal government. A February 2025 Reuters/IPSOS poll reveals that 58% of Americans worry that changes in the federal government could cause a delay in services they receive.[74] Therefore, AFFH provides critical services to Americans, and failing to enforce the rule denies their neighborhoods precious resources.
D. The Interim Final Rule Weakens HUD’s and the Fair Housing Act’s Mission
The IFR’s insistence that the Fair Housing Act prevents housing discrimination “based on all protected classes,” while discouraging “preferences based on racial or ethnic characteristics,” in administering AFFH is contradictory and weakens HUD’s and the Fair Housing Act’s mission.[75] A critical part of HUD’s mission is to “build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination.”[76] Similarly, HUD’s website identifies the Fair Housing Act’s objective as preventing discrimination, “in the sale or rental of housing, including against individuals seeking a mortgage or housing assistance, or in other housing-related activities.”[77] Therefore, HUD cannot cherry-pick which rights the Fair Housing Act protects. As previously mentioned in this letter, redress is not a preference; however, HUD’s recommendation that the protected classes are not mentioned explicitly raises serious questions about how HUD will prevent discrimination against these groups without mentioning them, especially veterans with disabilities.
E. Without Proper Enforcement, AFFH Does Not Help the Fair Housing Act Protect Disabled Veterans from Housing Discrimination
As of 2024, there are an estimated 5.9 million veterans who live with disabilities they incurred during military service; people who have fought to preserve the nation’s safety and rights should not be vulnerable to housing discrimination due to improper enforcement of AFFH and the Fair Housing Act.[78] Some of the barriers to housing that disabled veterans encounter include apartment complexes denying their right to use service animals and some communities’ use of zoning to block the construction of multifamily housing.[79] In 2011, a condominium association and its management company refused to grant a disabled veteran’s request for reasonable accommodation.[80] Both parties denied a Gulf War veteran’s request to keep a small dog in the condo he rented to help him manage the effects of anxiety and depression.[81] Moreover, the condominium association and management company refused to waive their pet fees and insurance requirements.[82] They also fined him multiple times until his lease was not renewed.[83] These issues were resolved in 2012 when the DOJ announced a consent decree and the U.S. District Court in Utah ordered the condominium association and the management company to, among other conditions, pay the plaintiff $20,000 and adopt a new reasonable accommodation policy that does not charge service animal owners pet fees or require them to purchase liability insurance.[84]
In 2012, Oakland Township, Michigan’s Board of Trustees approved a change to the community’s zoning code to allow the construction of a 248-unit multifamily unit building that would have provided key services to elderly and disabled residents; however, in 2013, a newly elected board of trustees overturned their change to the zoning code.[85] Using zoning to prevent the construction of multifamily housing was damaging for disabled veterans, as well as seniors, because it deprived them of the affordable services they needed through the construction of this type of housing in a community that was only zoned for single-family homes.[86] Without proper enforcement of AFFH and the Fair Housing Act, veterans with disabilities will be denied the housing that they deserve.
Conclusion
The 2025 AFFH IFR is deeply inconsistent with the mission of HUD and the Fair Housing Act. The country’s financial stability through combatting discrimination and ensuring that all Americans have equal access to housing depends on implementing AFFH, and subsequently the Fair Housing Act, appropriately. We urge HUD to withdraw the 2025 AFFH IFR and reinstate the 2021 AFFH IFR.[87]
Thank you for your consideration of our recommendations on this important issue. Please contact Nichole Nelson, Senior Policy Advisor, at nnelson@ncrc.org with any questions.
Sincerely,
Jesse Van Tol
President & CEO, National Community Reinvestment Coalition
Alabama NAACP State Conference Economic Programs
Ariva, Inc.
Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, Inc. ANHD
Bridgeport Neighborhood Trust d/b/a Building Neighborhoods Together
CASA of Oregon
Central American Resource Center (CARECEN)
Centro Cultural del Condado de Washington
Clover NOLA
Community Opportunity Alliance
Consumer Federation of America
Delaware Community Reinvestment Action Council, Inc.
Fair Share Housing Center
Grounded Solutions Network
Homes on the Hill CDC
Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Greater Cincinnati
Integrated Community Solutions, Inc.
Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, Inc.
Lawrence Community Works
Legal Action Center
Massachusetts Action for Justice
Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations
Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing (MICAH)
Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Center
Minnesota Homeownership Center
Neighborhood Development Collaborative (NDC)
Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Berks, INC
New Jersey Citizen Action
New Jersey Community Capital
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice
North Carolina Housing Coalition
NWCS, Inc.
Our Spring Lake Store, LLC
Peoples’ Self-Help Housing Corporation
Philadelphia Association of CDCs
Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group
River City Housing
Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Southern Dallas Progress Community Development Corporation
Southwest Georgia United
Southwest Neighborhood Housing Services
The First 72+
The National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD)
United South Broadway Corporation
Utah Housing Coalition
Voice of the Experienced
Voters Organized to Educate
Washington Homeownership Resource Center
[1] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Revisions,” Federal Register, 90, no. 40, (March 3, 2025): 11021-11022 and 11023, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-03-03/pdf/2025-03360.pdf.
[2] Ibid., 11023.
[3] Ibid.
[4] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Restoring Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Definitions and Certifications,” Federal Register, 86, no. 110, (June 10, 2021): 30782, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-06-10/pdf/2021-12114.pdf.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Mission,” (Accessed March 17, 2025), https://www.hud.gov/about/mission.
[8] Ashfaq Khan, Christian E. Weller, and Lily Roberts, “The Rental Housing Crisis Is a Supply Problem That Needs Supply Solutions,” Center for American Progress, August 22, 2022, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-rental-housing-crisis-is-a-supply-problem-that-needs-supply-solutions/.
[9] Khan, Weller, and Roberts, “The Rental Housing Crisis Is a Supply Problem That Needs Supply Solutions,” and Dan Garcia-Diaz, “What Can the Great Recession Teach Us About Rent Affordability in the Age of Coronavirus?” U.S. Government Accountability Office, July 7, 2020, https://www.gao.gov/blog/what-can-great-recession-teach-us-about-rent-affordability-age-coronavirus.
[10] U.S. Government Accountability Office, “What Can the Great Recession Teach Us About Rent Affordability in the Age of Coronavirus?” July 7, 2020.
[11] Janneke Ratcliffe, “How We Can Solve the Nation’s Affordable Housing Crisis,” CNN, Wednesday, February 16, 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/16/perspectives/affordable-housing-crisis/index.html#:~:text=In%20many%20respects%2C%20this%20crisis%20was%20born,financial%20crisis%2C%20began%20to%20enter%20the%20market and Karan Kaul, Laurie Goodman, and Michael Neal, “The Role of Single-Family Housing Production and Preservation in Addressing the Affordable Housing Supply Shortage,” The Urban Institute, December 2021, 1-2, https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/105265/the-role-of-single-family-housing-production-and-preservation-in-addressing-the-affordable-housing-supply-shortage.pdf.
[12] National Low Income Housing Coalition, “The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes,” March 2025, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 23, 27 https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/gap/2025/gap-report_2025_english.pdf.
[13] Ibid., 4.
[14] Renee Willis, National Low Income Housing Coalition Interim President and CEO, “Statement for the Record National Low Income Housing Coalition Renee Willis, Interim President and CEO Presented to the U.S. House Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance, ‘Building Our Future: Increasing Housing Supply in America,’ March 4, 2025,” March 4, 2025, 5, https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Statement_HFSC-Housing-Sub_Hearing-Supply_Final.pdf.
[15] 119th Congress, “H.R.1968 – Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025,” https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1968/text.
[16] Ibid. and National Low Income Housing Coalition, “Congress Passes and President Trump Signs into Law Year-Long Stopgap Funding Bill Underfunding Vital HUD Programs,” March 17, 2025, https://nlihc.org/resource/congress-passes-and-president-trump-signs-law-year-long-stopgap-funding-bill-underfunding.
[17] Karl Evers-Hillstrom, Brandon Lee, Dan Lee, and Greg Tourial, “BGOV Bill Analysis: Full-Year FY 2025 Stopgap Funding (1),” Bloomberg Government, March 11, 2025, https://www.bgov.com/next/news/SSYWC2T0G1KW and National Low Income Housing Coalition, “FY25 Budget Chart for Selected
Federal Housing Programs,” March 17, 2024, https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Final_HUD_Budget-Chart_FY25_Final.pdf.
[18] Evers-Hillstrom, Brandon Lee, Dan Lee, and Tourial, “BGOV Bill Analysis: Full-Year FY 2025 Stopgap Funding,” Bloomberg Government.
[19] Amanda Abrams, “Lessons from the Last Housing Crisis: How to Get Control of Properties,” Shelterforce, September 17, 2020, https://shelterforce.org/2020/09/17/lessons-from-the-last-housing-crisis/ and United States Government Accountability Office, “Rental Housing: Information on Institutional Investment in Single-Family Homes,” May 2024, 9, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-24-106643.pdf.
[20] Ibid.
[21] United States Government Accountability Office, “Rental Housing: Information on Institutional Investment in Single-Family Homes,” May 2024, 11.
[22] Ibid., 13.
[23] Benjamin Oreskes, “Hochul Seeks to Limit Private-Equity Ownership of Homes in New York,” The New York Times, January 9, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/nyregion/private-equity-homes-hochul.html.
[24] Nichole Nelson and Bakari Levy, “How Algorithms and Monopolies Hurt Tenants – and How Tech Can Help,” National Community Reinvestment Coalition, December 19, 2024, https://ncrc.org/how-algorithms-and-monopolies-hurt-tenants-and-how-tech-can-help/.
[25] United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., August 2024, 81-83, https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1364976/dl?inline.
[26] Nelson and Levy, “How Algorithms and Monopolies Hurt Tenants – and How Tech Can Help,” National Community Reinvestment Coalition, December 19, 2024, and United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., 2, 7-8, 42, 54, and 82.
[27] United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., 35 and Nelson and Levy, “How Algorithms and Monopolies Hurt Tenants – and How Tech Can Help.”
[28] United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., August 2024, 24 and Nelson and Levy, “How Algorithms and Monopolies Hurt Tenants – and How Tech Can Help.”
[29] United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., August 2024, 24 and 26.
[30] Ibid., 5 and Kevin T. White and Tammy W. Cowart, “Behind the Cloaking Device: Is There an Anti-Competitive Agreement Lurking Under the Use of Common Pricing Algorithms by Multifamily Landlords?” The Washburn Law Journal, 63, no. 3, (September 2024): 316, https://contentdm.washburnlaw.edu/digital/collection/wlj/id/7691/rec/1.
[31] Nelson and Levy, “How Algorithms and Monopolies Hurt Tenants – and How Tech Can Help,” and White and Cowart, “Behind the Cloaking Device,” 312.
[32] Nelson and Levy, “How Algorithms and Monopolies Hurt Tenants – and How Tech Can Help,” and United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Connecticut, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., August 2024, 72.
[33] United States of America, State of North Carolina, State of California, State of Colorado, State of Minnesota, State of Oregon, State of Tennessee, and State of Washington v. RealPage, Inc., August 2024, 98, 100, and 101.
[34] The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Planning and Community Development, “The 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress: Part 1: Point-in Time Estimates of Homelessness,” December 2024, page v, 2, 6, 12, and 82, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2024-AHAR-Part-1.pdf.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid., 26, 30, 36, and 90.
[37] Ibid., v and 6.
[38] Ibid., v, 2, 6, 12, and 82.
[39] Ibid., v.
[40] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Revisions,” Federal Register, 90, no. 40, (March 3, 2025): 11021-11022.
[41] United States Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Table: All Topics: Population estimates, July 1, 2023, (V2023),” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045223.
[42] United States Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Table: All Topics: Population Estimates, July 1, 2023, (V2023): Age and Sex,” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/SEX255223#SEX255223; United States Census Bureau, “QuickFacts: Table: All Topics: Population Estimates, July 1, 2023, (V2023): Race and Hispanic Origin,” https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045223; CDC Newsroom, “CDC Data Shows Over 70 Million U.S. Adults Reported Having a Disability,” July 16, 2024, accessed April 6, 2025, https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/s0716-Adult-disability.html#:~:text=The%20latest%20data%2C%20from%20the%202022%20Behavioral,States%20reported%20having%20a%20disability%20in%202022.&text=Older%20adults%20reported%20a%20higher%20disability%20prevalence,and%20older)%20compared%20to%20other%20age%20groups; and United States Census Bureau: American Community Survey, “S1101: Households and Families,” 2023: ACS 1-Year Estimates Detailed Tables, United States, https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2023.S1101?q=S1101:+Households+and+Families.
[43] Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions, “Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S,” September 2020, 4, 7, and 38, https://ir.citi.com/%2FPRxPvgNWu319AU1ajGf%2BsKbjJjBJSaTOSdw2DF4xynPwFB8a2jV1FaA3Idy7vY59bOtN2lxVQM%3D
[44] Lucy Pérez, Bernardo Sichel, Michael Chui, Ana Paula Calvo, “The Economic State of Latinos in America: The American Dream Deferred,” Mckinsey & Company, December 2021, vi, vii, 1, 41, and 53, https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/sustainable%20inclusive%20growth/the%20economic%20state%20of%20latinos%20in%20america%20the%20american%20dream%20deferred/the-economic-state-of-latinos-in-america-v2.pdf?shouldIndex=false.
[45] Ibid., vi, vii, 1, 22, 23, 29, and 53, https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/sustainable%20inclusive%20growth/the%20economic%20state%20of%20latinos%20in%20america%20the%20american%20dream%20deferred/the-economic-state-of-latinos-in-america-v2.pdf?shouldIndex=false.
[46] Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions, “Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S,” September 2020, 4, 7, and 38.
[47] National Partnership for Women and Families, “America’s Women and the Wage Gap: Fact Sheet,” March 2025, 1, https://nationalpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/americas-women-and-the-wage-gap.pdf.
[48] Ibid., 2.
[49] Ibid.
[50] Lucy Pérez, Bernardo Sichel, Michael Chui, Ana Paula Calvo, “The Economic State of Latinos in America: The American Dream Deferred,” Mckinsey & Company, December 2021, vi, 1, 3, 4, 31, 32, 35, and 66.
[51] Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions, “Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S,” September 2020, 4, 7, 18, and 64.
[52] Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions, “Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps: The Economic Cost of Black Inequality in the U.S,” September 2020, 3, 4, 7, and 36.
[53] National Partnership for Women and Families, “America’s Women and the Wage Gap: Fact Sheet,” March 2025, 2 and Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Gross Domestic Product, Fourth Quarter and Year 2020 (Second Estimate),” February 25, 2021, https://www.bea.gov/news/2021/gross-domestic-product-fourth-quarter-and-year-2020-second-estimate.
[54] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Revisions,” 11020 and 11021.
[55] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Mission,” (Accessed March 17, 2025).
[56] Ibid.
[57] PolicyLink, “Re: Docket No. FR-6250-P-01, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” April 24, 2023, 17, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X6Vs3eu-r9x1LlepcmrJEsRG5tfFkbxQ/view; PolicyLink, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is a Pathway to Inclusive Housing Futures,” https://www.policylink.org/our-work/housing/affh; PolicyLink, “Obama Administration Advances Access to Opportunity through New Fair Housing Rule,” https://www.policylink.org/blog/obama-administration-fair-housing-rule; City of New Orleans: Office of Community Development, “2016 Assessment of Fair Housing,” 12-13 and 120-121, https://nola.gov/archived/community-development/documents/2016-updated-afh-plan-090516/afh-plan-090516-final/; City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority, “City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority: Assessment of Fair Housing,” December 23, 2016, 17, https://www.phila.gov/media/20190502115754/afh-2016-for-web.pdf; and Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, “Chicago Blueprint for Fair Housing: Progress Report,” May 2023, 9, https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/sites/chicagos-blueprint-for-fair-housing/pdfs/May-2023-Progress-Report.pdf.
[58] City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority, “City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Housing Authority: Assessment of Fair Housing,” 6.
[59] Ibid.
[60] Ibid., 17.
[61] City of Philadelphia: Mayor Cherelle Parker, “City Launches Right to Counsel for Eligible Philadelphia Tenants,” January 31, 2022, https://www.phila.gov/2022-01-31-city-launches-right-to-counsel-for-eligible-philadelphia-tenants/.
[62] Ibid. and City of Philadelphia: Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, “Right to Counsel (RTC) Expansion to Zip Codes 19124, 19141, and 19154,” January 21, 2025, https://www.phila.gov/2025-01-21-right-to-counsel-rtc-expansion-to-zip-codes-19124-19141-and-19154/.
[63] City of Philadelphia: Mayor Cherelle Parker, “City Launches Right to Counsel for Eligible Philadelphia Tenants,” January 31, 2022, and City of Philadelphia: Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, “Right to Counsel (RTC) Expansion to Zip Codes 19124, 19141, and 19154,” January 21, 2025.
[64] City of Philadelphia, “Right to Counsel Annual Report: FY 2022,” 3, https://www.phila.gov/media/20230125144105/RightToCounsel_AnnualReport_FY22.pdf; City of Philadelphia, “Right to Counsel Annual Report: FY 2023,” 3, https://www.phila.gov/media/20240816090859/Right-to-Counsel-annual-report-FY23.pdf; and Department of Planning and Development Housing and Community Development City of Philadelphia, “Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2024,” 2, https://www.phila.gov/media/20250204132955/Right-to-Counsel-Annual-Report-Fiscal-Year-2024.pdf;
[65] City of New Orleans: Office of Community Development, ”2016 Assessment of Fair Housing,” 6-7.
[66] Ibid., 8-9.
[67] Ibid., 10, 12, 13, and 120-121.
[68] Ibid. 120-121.
[69] Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, “Chicago Blueprint for Fair Housing: Progress Report,” 9.
[70] “Chicago Blueprint for Fair Housing Completed as part of the Cook County Regional Assessment of Fair Housing,” October 2021, 17, https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/sites/chicagos-blueprint-for-fair-housing/pdfs/ChicagoBlueprintforFairHousing-Full%20Report.pdf#:~:text=The%20Cook%20County%20Regional%20Assessment%20of%20Fair,residential%20segregation%20and%20related%20fair%20housing%20issues.&text=The%20AFH%20provides%20a%20comprehensive%20framework%20for,equity%20and%20justice%20for%20historically%20marginalized%20groups.
[71] The Department of Planning and Development of the Bureau of Economic Development, “Cook County, Illinois Annual Action Plan: Program Year 2021 (October 1, 2021 – September 30, 2022), 27-28, https://www.cookcountyil.gov/sites/g/files/ywwepo161/files/2021_draft_annual_action_plan.pdf and Chicago Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, “Chicago Blueprint for Fair Housing: Progress Report,” May 2023, 9.
[72] Ibid.
[73] Ibid.; City of Chicago, “Connected Communities Ordinance,” https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/equitable-transit-oriented-development/home/connected-communities-ordinance.html; and City of Chicago, “Inclusionary Application Zoning Process,” https://www.chicago.gov/content/dam/city/sites/etod/Pdfs/CCO-Inclusionary-Application-Zoning-Process.pdf.
[74] “Reuters/Ipsos Large Sample Poll February 2025,” Ipsos, February 25, 2025, https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/reutersipsos-large-sample-poll-february-2025.
According to the poll, “Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they worry changes in the federal government could cause delays in services people in their community rely on, such as Social Security payments and student aid.”
[75] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Revisions,” Federal Register, 90, no. 40, March 3, 2025, 11021-11022.
[76] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Mission.”
[77] U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “Fair Housing Rights and Obligations,” https://www.hud.gov/stat/fheo/rights-obligations, accessed April 7, 2025.
[78] U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Veterans Benefits Administration Annual Benefits Report: Fiscal Year 2024,” 2024, 69 and 73, https://www.benefits.va.gov/REPORTS/abr/docs/2024-abr.pdf.
[79] Archives, U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Department Settles Disability Discrimination Case Involving Disabled Veteran in Utah,” February 27, 2012, https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-settles-disability-discrimination-case-involving-disabled-veteran-utah and Brian Dickerson, “Disabled Vets Not Welcome in Posh Suburb,” Detroit Free Press, December 7, 2014, https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/brian-dickerson/2014/12/07/disabled-veterans-discrimination-suit/19980009/.
[80] Archives, U.S. Department of Justice, “Justice Department Settles Disability Discrimination Case Involving Disabled Veteran in Utah,” February 27, 2012.
[81] Ibid.
[82] Ibid.
[83] Ibid.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Dickerson, “Disabled Vets Not Welcome in Posh Suburb,” Detroit Free Press.
[86] Ibid.
[87] National Fair Housing Alliance to HUD Secretary Scott Turner, “Re: Docket No. FR–6519–I–01; Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Revisions,” May 2, 2025, 13.
