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fair housing act
Warren Calls for Probe as Whistleblowers Accuse Trump Appointees of 'Systematically Destroying' Fair Housing Act
Warren says new whistleblower reports "show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law."
Sep 22, 2025
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling for an investigation into the Department of Housing and Urban Development after several whistleblowers reported that Trump appointees have gutted enforcement of the decades-old law banning housing discrimination.
A New York Times report published Monday, quotes "half a dozen current and former employees of HUD’s fair housing office" who "said that the Trump political appointees had made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs" enforcing the 1968 Fair Housing Act "which involve investigating and prosecuting landlords, real estate agents, lenders and others who discriminate based on race, religion, gender, family status or disability."
In a video posted to social media, Warren (D-Mass.) explained that “if you’re a mom protecting her kids from living with an abusive father or if you’re getting denied a mortgage because of the color of your skin, you have civil rights protection under US law. But the Trump administration has been systematically destroying these federal protections for renters and homeowners.”
According to the Times, when President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by billionaire Elon Musk, launched its crusade to dismantle large parts of the federal government at the start of Trump's second term earlier this year, the Office of Fair Housing (OFH) had its staff cut by 65% through layoffs and reassignments, with the number of employees dropping from 31 to 11. Just six of the remaining staff now work on fair housing cases.
The number of discrimination charges pursued by the office has plummeted since Trump took office. In most years, it has 35. During Trump's second term, the office has pursued just four. Meanwhile, it's obtained just $200,000 total in legal settlements after previously obtaining anywhere from $4 million to $8 million per year.
Emails and memos obtained by the Times show a pattern of Trump appointees obstructing investigations:
In one email, a Trump appointee... described decades of housing discrimination cases as “artificial, arbitrary, and unnecessary.”
In another, a career supervisor in the department’s [OFH] objected to lawyers being reassigned to other offices; the supervisor was fired six days later for insubordination.
In a third, the office’s director of enforcement warned that Trump appointees were using gag orders and intimidation to block discrimination cases from moving forward. The urgent message was sent to a US senator, who is referring it to the department’s acting inspector general for investigation.
Several lawyers said they have been restricted from using past cases in enforcement and communicating with certain clients without approval from Trump's appointees.
A memo also reportedly went out to employees informing them that documents “contrary to administration policy” would be thrown out, and that “tenuous theories of discrimination” would no longer be pursued.
Among those supposedly "tenuous" cases have been ones involving appraisal bias—the practice of undervaluing homes owned by Black families—zoning restrictions blocking housing for Black and Latino families, and cases related to discrimination against people over gender or gender expression.
The administration has also abandoned cases related to the racist practice of "redlining"—the decades-old practice of denying mortgages to minorities and others in minority neighborhoods—with memos from Trump appointees calling the concept "legally unsound."
The changes follow a sweeping set of executive orders from Trump during his first week in office, targeting "diversity equity, and inclusion" (DEI) programs. Employees at the Office of Fair Housing told the Times that Trump appointees had begun to describe much of the department's work as "an offshoot of DEI."
A HUD spokesperson, Kasey Lovett, told the Times that it was "patently false" to suggest that the administration was trying to weaken the Fair Housing Act. She pointed out that HUD was still handling approximately 4,100 cases this year, on par with the previous year. As the Times notes, "Lovett did not address, however, how many of the cases had been investigated or had resulted in legal action."
According to the Times:
Hundreds of pending fair housing cases were frozen, and some settlements revoked, even when accusations of discrimination had been substantiated, according to the interviews and the internal communications.
In one instance, a large homeowner’s association in Texas was found to have banned the use of housing vouchers by Black residents. That case had been referred to the Justice Department, but the referral was abruptly withdrawn by the new Trump appointees.
Four current staff members have provided the trove of documents to Warren, who announced Monday that she'd sent a request to Brian Harrison, HUD’s acting inspector general, to open an investigation into its handling of discrimination cases.
Warren said that the documents "show the extent of the Trump administration's attack on civil rights and show how the administration appears to be ignoring the law."
In a press release from the Democrats on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Warren, the ranking member, highlighted the particularly devastating impact staffing cuts have had on the enforcement of complaints under the Violence Against Women Act, which the Times says only two of the six lawyers remaining at HUD have experience with.
According to Warren, whistleblowers said the cuts were "placing survivors in greater danger of suffering additional trauma, physical violence, and even death."
Warren said that as a result of the hundreds of dropped cases, "Now people are asking, 'well, why would I file a case at all if nothing's going to happen?'"
Calling for an independent investigation, Warren said, "We wrote these laws to make this a fairer America, and now it's time to enforce those laws."
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Recovering Takes A Village, Not A Stereotype
This National Recovery Month, learn about an Ohio community agency taking a stand for recovery justice.
Sep 25, 2024
As we mark National Recovery Month this September, I find myself reflecting on my own journey with Substance Use Disorder, or SUD, and the vital role that community plays in both addiction and healing. My experience is a testament to how crucial a supportive environment is for people to rebuild their lives with dignity, especially now, as communities across our country try to close the door on those who deserve a chance at recovery.
My story is not unique. Like so many others, I struggled in silence. Substance use was a topic never openly acknowledged in my family—it was treated like dirty laundry, something to be disregarded, not diagnosed. As a nurse and a loving mother, I presented a picture-perfect life to those around me. I was in denial myself, too: I believed I was immune to any of the pressures that could lead to substance use, despite living in a city and state where it was so prevalent. And even with my medical background, I was unable to see my own addiction for the health issue that it was.
It wasn’t until I confronted my internalized stereotypes and became vulnerable with others that I began to heal. Since there was a lack of official recovery services in my hometown, I realized recovery cannot occur in isolation, it requires a supportive community and dedicated spaces and professionals. Even with a lack of drug courts, reentry drug courts, and support groups available in my city at the time, my own recovery was made possible because of my friends and family: the very community I had feared to share my truth with.
Shunning and shaming does not stop SUD. Our siblings, children, and friends deserve our support and should not be labeled as “dangerous” or “criminals.”
Once my truth was laid bare, others became more vulnerable with me and began to share their own stories. There were fellow parents, neighbors, and friends all of whom believed they were the only ones struggling. I learned that SUD thrives in secrecy. This experience inspired me to create a recovery center so others could heal within the community and find the support they need, free from stigma.
Alongside my family, I founded Lawrence County Recovery, LLC (LCR), an agency dedicated to breaking the cycle of shame surrounding SUD, and providing recovery services that empower individuals to reenter their communities with pride. Too often, people in recovery are met with judgment instead of compassion, turned away when they should be welcomed. Recognizing that peer and community support makes the recovery process more sustainable, LCR has set up recovery housing, or sober living homes. In these homes, small groups of people in recovery can live together, support one another, and hold each other accountable as a step toward independent living.
Despite these successes, and after more than five years of supporting over 1,500 people in recovery, I am still witnessing firsthand how discrimination harms and stigmatizes LCR’s clients.
This past August, LCR filed a lawsuit against the Village of Coal Grove, Ohio for engaging in a uniquely egregious and discriminatory campaign targeting individuals in recovery from SUD. The complaint alleges that Coal Grove has imposed a moratorium on new recovery homes, enforced invasive and restrictive requirements on existing providers, and pursued criminal charges against LCR’s leadership, all based on unfounded fears and prejudices.
It is deeply painful to watch as some of my local leaders and neighbors turn their backs on members of our community. Shunning and shaming does not stop SUD. Our siblings, children, and friends deserve our support and should not be labeled as “dangerous” or “criminals.”
People in recovery are protected under federal and state disability laws, including the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which are designed to ensure access to the resources necessary to rebuild lives. This lawsuit is about more than just one city or one recovery provider—it represents a broader struggle for recovery justice.
In Lawrence County alone, zoning proposals in Ironton and South Point have threatened treatment facilities. Throughout Ohio and across the country, local governments are enacting policies that actively hinder recovery services, often driven by misinformation, fear, and stigma.
If we are to make real progress, we must dismantle the harmful stereotypes that surround substance use disorder and embrace the true values of community—belonging and acceptance. My hope is that this stand against discrimination sends a message across the state, that hate has no place in our homes and that healing takes a village.
Recovery is possible, but it cannot happen in the shadows. As a society, we must do better—opening our communities and our hearts to those who need support. This National Recovery Month, let us remember that addiction does not discriminate, and neither should we.
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Congressman Proposes Bill to Block GOP States' Property Ownership Bans
"Banning buying homes based on citizenship and registering your property did not bode well in history," said one lawmaker. "This is the Republicans rewriting the Chinese Exclusion Act."
May 26, 2023
Days after a group of Chinese citizens sued Florida's government over its new law restricting Chinese citizens from purchasing property in the state, U.S. Rep. Al Green this week warned of a "proliferation" of such bans and unveiled federal legislation to prohibit them.
The proposal would affirm that federal law, such as the Fair Housing Act, takes precedence over state bans restricting who can and cannot legally purchase real estate or farmland. It would also allow people to sue in federal court and have a right to court-ordered relief including an injunction if they've been harmed by bans like the one approved by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Fair Housing Act explicitly prohibits discrimination in housing based on national origin, race, sex, gender identity, religion, and disability.
Despite the long-standing law, Florida this month became the latest state to pass restrictions on property ownership, targeting Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Cuban, Venezuelan, and North Korean citizens. DeSantis claimed Chinese people have been "gobbling up" land in the state and said the law is intended to stop the Chinese Communist Party from gaining influence and spying in the state.
"That is not in the best interests of Florida to have the Chinese Communist Party owning farmland, owning land close to military bases," said the governor, who announced his 2024 presidential campaign this week.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, also a Republican, signed a ban on Chinese companies buying property in March, and the Texas Legislature had advanced a similar bill targeting companies and government entities headquartered in China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
According to the National Agricultural Law Center, 21 states have laws restricting foreign ownership of farmland. More than 30 states have drafted or advanced legislation to either tighten those restrictions or introduce new ones.
"I don't think we ought to allow 50 states to have the opportunity to pass laws that can impact foreign affairs, which really is the province of the executive branch of the federal government," Green told HuffPost on Thursday. "I don't think we should wait until we get 30, 50, whatever number of different laws to act."
The measures have drawn comparisons to the so-called "alien land laws" that were in place in the early 20th century before being struck down by courts and state legislatures. The laws prohibited Chinese and Japanese immigrants from owning land and "severely exacerbated violence and discrimination against Asian communities," according to the ACLU, which is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in Florida this week.
"Banning buying homes based on citizenship and registering your property did not bode well in history... This is the Republicans rewriting the Chinese Exclusion Act," said Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) this week, referring to the 1882 law that banned Chinese workers from immigrating to the United States.
Contrary to DeSantis' claim that Chinese citizens are buying large amounts of property across Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency, foreigners owned only 3.1% of farmland at the end of 2021, and about a third of that land was owned by Canadians. Less than 1% of the land—0.03% of all farmland in the U.S.—was owned by Chinese citizens or entities.
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Why We Must Fight Economic Apartheid in America
Almost lost by the wave of responses to the Supreme Court's decisions last week upholding the Affordable Care Act and allowing gays and lesbians to marry was the significance of the Court's third decision - on housing discrimination.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Court found that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 requires plaintiffs to show only that the effect of a policy is discriminatory, not that defendants intended to discriminate.
Jun 29, 2015
Almost lost by the wave of responses to the Supreme Court's decisions last week upholding the Affordable Care Act and allowing gays and lesbians to marry was the significance of the Court's third decision - on housing discrimination.
In a 5-4 ruling, the Court found that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 requires plaintiffs to show only that the effect of a policy is discriminatory, not that defendants intended to discriminate.
The decision is important in the fight against economic apartheid in America - racial segregation on a much larger geographic scale than ever before.
The decision is likely to affect everything from bank lending practices, whose effect is to harm low-income non-white borrowers, to zoning laws that favor higher-income white homebuyers.
First, some background. Americans are segregating ever more by income in terms of where we live.
Thirty years ago, most cities contained a broad spectrum of residents from wealthy to poor. Today, entire cities are mostly rich (San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle) or mostly impoverished (Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia).
Because a disproportionate number of the nation's poor are black or Latino, we're experiencing far more segregation geographically.
Which is why, for example, black students are more isolated today than they were 40 years ago. More than 2 million black students now attend schools where 90 percent of the student body is minority.
According to a new study by Stanford researchers, even many middle-income black families remain in poor neighborhoods with low-quality schools, fewer parks and playgrounds, more crime, and inadequate public transportation. Blacks and Hispanics typically need higher incomes than whites in order to live in affluent neighborhoods.
To some extent, this is a matter of choice. Many people prefer to live among others who resemble them racially and ethnically.
But some of this is due to housing discrimination. For example, a 2013 study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that realtors often show black families fewer properties than white families possessing about the same income and wealth.
The income gap between poor minority and middle-class white communities continues to widen. While the recovery has boosted housing prices overall, it hasn't boosted them in poor communities.
That's partly because bank loan officers are now more reluctant to issue mortgages on homes in poor neighborhoods - not because lenders intend to discriminate but because they see greater risks of falling housing values and foreclosures.
But this reluctance is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has reduced demand for homes in such areas - resulting in more foreclosures and higher rates of vacant and deteriorating homes. The result: further declines in home prices.
As prices drop, even homeowners who have kept current on their mortgage payments can't refinance to take advantage of lower interest rates.
Others who owe more on their homes than their homes are worth have simply stopped maintaining them. In many poor communities, this has caused the housing stock to decline further, and home prices to follow.
Adding to the downward spiral is the fiscal reality that lower housing values mean less revenue from local property taxes. This, in turn, contributes to worsening schools, fewer police officers, and junkier infrastructure -accelerating the downward slide.
All of this explains why housing prices in poor neighborhoods remain about 13 percent below where they were before the recession, even though prices in many upscale neighborhoods have fully rebounded.
And why about 15 percent of the nation's homes worth less than $200,000 are still underwater while just 6 percent of homes worth more than $200,000 are.
Worse yet for poor communities, most of America's new jobs are being created in areas where housing already is pricy, while fewer jobs are emerging in places where housing is cheapest.
The toxic mixture of housing discrimination, racial segregation over wide swathes of metropolitan areas, and low wages and few jobs in such places, has had long-term effects.
A Harvard study released in May suggests just how long. The study tracked several million children since 1980s.
It found that young children whose families had been given housing vouchers allowing them to move to better neighborhoods were more likely to do better in later life - attend college and get better jobs - than those whose families hadn't received the vouchers.
The study points to one solution: housing vouchers that help lower-income families move into better neighborhoods.
It also suggests that federal tax credits to encourage developers to build housing for the poor should be used in racially-integrated communities, rather than mostly in poor ones.
Not incidentally, this is the very issue that sparked last week's Supreme Court's decision on fair housing.
If we want to reverse the vicious cycle of economic apartheid in America, that decision offers an important starting place.
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In Surprise Decision, SCOTUS Rules Against Discriminatory Housing Practices
Court rules that Fair Housing Act allows people to pursue lawsuits when a housing practice has a discriminatory effect, even if that practice wasn't intended to discriminate
Jun 25, 2015
In a decision applauded by housing and civil rights groups on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) allows people to pursue lawsuits when a housing practice has a discriminatory effect, even if that practice wasn't intended to discriminate--an effect known as "disparate impact."
The decision, which was anxiously awaited by housing advocates and lenders alike, was "a bit of a surprise," said SCOTUSblog writer Amy Howe.
The FHA, which became law in 1968, states that housing cannot be denied to individuals based on race. The case before the court involved allegations that the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs violated the FHA by giving too many federal low-income housing tax credits to developers who own properties in poor, predominantly minority areas.
The court found that it did. "[T]he Department and its officers...caused continued segregated housing patterns by allocating too many tax credits to housing in predominantly black inner-city areas and too few in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods," the judges wrote in their decision (pdf).
The court ruled 5-4 in favor of the plaintiffs, a Texas-based nonprofit called the Inclusive Communities Project, finding that "the Department failed to meet its burden to show that there were no less discriminatory alternatives for allocating the tax credits."
"Disparate-impact claims are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act," the majority opinion concluded.
Advocates like the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) welcomed the ruling, stating that it ensures the FHA "will remain a safeguard against covert discrimination" like disparate impact.
"Strong and effective laws that protect equal opportunity are the cornerstone of our democracy," NLIHC wrote in a press release following the ruling. "We applaud the Supreme Court for its decision today in ensuring that disparate impact will remain a safeguard against covert and unintended discrimination.
"The full reach of the Fair Housing Act is key to expanding opportunity to everyone in this country regardless of the color of one's skin, national origin, religion, gender, family status, and disability. Everyone deserves an opportunity to have adequate housing. If discriminatory practices are allowed it decreases the opportunities for everyone--but especially for those most vulnerable in society--to live the American dream."
As CNN reported earlier this week, the lawsuit "might be the sleeper case of the term," one being watched closely by civil rights groups and housing insurance companies and lenders alike.
Thursday's ruling was "a good example of what's problematic with the proposition that this is a 'liberal' term," said SCOTUSblog writer Eric Citron, referring to the composition of the current court and how its decisions have been trending. "On the one hand, this is a huge victory for the left wing of the Court on a contentious issue; on the other hand, this issue does not get granted with a less conservative Court. It all depends on your baseline."
"This is a big deal for housing rights and civil rights groups," Howe added.
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