11 August 2025
By Charlene Crowell
Contributing Writer
Despite passage of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) in 1968, housing discrimination persists in the United States. Fair housing complaints have increased in recent years, reaching 33,007 – the highest ever reported – in 2022, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Further, the year’s complaint data also showed that private fair housing organizations – not the federal government – continued to process the majority of housing discrimination complaints reported throughout the country.
This vital work can continue due to a recent federal court ordering the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to release nearly $32 million in already-appropriated funds to organizations that support fair housing enforcement, to ensure that all people have equal access to home sales and rentals, finance, insurance, appraisals and more.
After a June 24 lawsuit challenged HUD’s refusal to release the funds, U.S. District Court Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan on July 29 ordered HUD to release withheld multi-year grants and other payments from HUD’s Fair Housing Initiative Program (FHIP) that supports the work of 75 fair housing organizations that combat illegal housing discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or other protected status.
Referring to plaintiffs, Judge Sooknanan wrote: “… HUD’s failure to issue new grants by the deadline will rob (plaintiffs) of the opportunity for funding… And they have argued that this harm is imminent because HUD does not even contend that the process to administer the awards has advanced to the stage necessary to make the awards on a permissible schedule prior to the appropriations deadline. The Court agrees.”
On August 5, in compliance with the first of two court-imposed deadlines, HUD outlined an expedited approach on how existing grants would be distributed. With its publication on July 29 of four new notices of funding opportunity (NOFO), a 23-day grant application period began. On or around September 15 – just five 5 days before the current federal fiscal year ends on September 30 – the agency intends to complete all application reviews, determine new awards, and issue obligation letters. However, actual grant start dates will be the result of negotiated terms between the agency and each grantee.
On September 30, the second court deadline, will detail the agency’s plan to make new grants available.
The lawsuit was brought by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), which works to eliminate housing discrimination and ensure equitable housing opportunities for all people and communities on behalf of its 170 member organizations, and the Nashville-based Tennessee Fair Housing Council, a recipient of 15 FHIP grants since 1995.
NFHA still cheered the victory but warned that fair housing enforcement remains under assault.
“The court recognized the real and immediate harm that HUD’s actions are causing to fair housing organizations and the communities that depend on them as the nation continues to grapple with a fair and affordable housing crisis,” said Lisa Rice, NFHA president and CEO.
Rice also termed the court decision “a crucial step in restoring the fair housing infrastructure that millions of people across the country rely on to challenge illegal housing and lending policies and practices and access justice.”
When FHIP became a permanent HUD program in 1992, the authorizing legislation gave the program explicit duties to: implement testing programs; establish new fair housing organizations or expand capacity of existing ones; conduct special projects to respond to new or sophisticated forms of housing discrimination; undertake larger, long-term enforcement activities through multi-year funding agreements; and bring enforcement actions to ensure compliance with the FHA.
But since this January, FHIP – like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and student loan forgiveness programs seems to be fighting extinction.
“The Trump administration has been intentional in its efforts to chip away at, delay and deny critical civil rights that are codified into law, ” noted Rice, when the lawsuit was originally filed. “Fair Housing has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support but now, the Trump Administration is refusing to abide by the budget appropriations decisions taken by Congress, which it is required to do.”
“This is a civil rights emergency, and the government is standing by when it should be taking action,”, said Reed Colfax, Co-Managing Partner at Relman Colfax who is representing the fair housing advocates.
This article originally published in the August 11, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.