From the ACLU:
HARTFORD, Conn. — The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU Foundation of Connecticut, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll filed a federal lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to challenge its rollback of critical protections under the Fair Housing Act. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate a new HUD regulation that guts the long-established legal framework for “disparate impact” claims, which have helped dismantle systemic barriers to fair housing for decades. The suit was filed on behalf of the Open Communities Alliance and SouthCoast Fair Housing, and organizations advancing fair housing in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
“The Trump administration has launched yet another attack on civil rights by gutting one of the key tools used to defend our right to fair housing and combat housing discrimination,” said Sandra Park, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “We will fight to restore these critical protections that ensure equal housing opportunities for all.”
The existing disparate impact framework, grounded in decades of court precedent and codified in 2013 by HUD, is crucial for guaranteeing equal access to housing in the United States. It requires housing providers, financial institutions, municipalities, and other corporations to eliminate policies that appear neutral but disproportionately limit housing opportunities for marginalized and vulnerable communities, including people of color, people with disabilities, families with children, and survivors of domestic violence. The Trump administration’s new HUD rule, which goes into effect on Monday, Oct. 26, substantially rolls back these protections by creating unnecessary barriers for victims of housing discrimination attempting to prove claims against discriminatory housing practices.
“For generations, Connecticut’s restrictive laws on where housing authorities can operate have resulted in a concentration of poverty in communities of color and prevented many Black and Latino families from moving to the communities of their choice,” said Erin Boggs, Executive Director of Open Communities Alliance. “Now the Trump administration has cut off the legal avenue to remedy this wrong. We are committed to stopping this effort which, at its core, is working to prevent historically disenfranchised communities from asserting their Fair Housing rights."
If HUD succeeds in eliminating the current protections of the Fair Housing Act, a number of discriminatory practices could go unchecked. Landlords could evict survivors of domestic violence under policies punishing tenants for criminal activity in their homes or for calling the police; landlords could deny housing to anyone with any type of prior criminal record; public housing authorities could be prevented from giving housing vouchers to low-income people seeking to live in other neighborhoods, perpetuating racial segregation; and landlords could choose to rent out apartments by the room or impose overly restrictive occupancy limits, effectively shutting out families with children.
“Unfortunately, we continue to see business practices that have the effect of excluding families with children from housing opportunities in certain areas,” said Kristina da Fonseca, Executive Director of SouthCoast Fair Housing. “These practices make it harder for families with children to remain housed or find housing and undermine the intent of the Fair Housing Act. The last seven months have shown us that it is as important as ever to have all the necessary tools to tackle discrimination at our disposal. Our communities are standing up against discrimination and they deserve to have “disparate impact” claims as a way forward.”
This suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.
Complaint can be found here: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/oca-v-carson-0
