2025 Policy Roadmap Offers Solutions to the Nation’s Fair and Affordable Housing Crisis 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

January 13, 2025  

Media Contact: NFHA@skdknick.com 

2025 Policy Roadmap Offers Solutions to the Nation’s Fair and Affordable Housing Crisis 

Focus on Safeguarding Civil Rights and Advancing Fair Housing, Equitable Opportunities, and Thriving Communities 

Washington, D.C. — The National Fair Housing Alliance® (NFHA™) released its policy priorities for the 119^th Congress and incoming Trump Administration to solve the nation’s fair and affordable housing crisis, ensure fair and equitable housing opportunities for all, and promote a stronger economy. These policy priorities are organized into four categories: 

1. Preserve checks and balances; 
2. Protect established rights and freedoms; 
3. Promote fair and affordable housing for all households and communities; and 
4. Support robust civil rights protections for automated systems, including artificial intelligence (AI). 

“By ensuring everyone can fairly access opportunity, we open the doors to individual advancement and enhance our collective prosperity. Our nation’s fair housing and lending laws, including the Fair Housing Act, promise everyone access to a safe and affordable home near well-resourced schools, reliable transportation and internet, healthy foods, quality healthcare, fresh air, clean water, and living-wage jobs,” said NFHA’s Executive Vice President, Nikitra Bailey. “These laws were intended to remove all barriers to equitable housing and lending opportunities so all people could have a fair chance at the American Dream. Unfortunately, today’s record-high housing costs continue to drive inflation and strain the budgets of everyday people, pushing hundreds of thousands into homelessness. Discriminatory housing and lending practices are not relics of the past. Moreover, bias in our markets is not a bug, but a feature driven by rapidly evolving algorithms that are entrenching racial and economic inequality. By eliminating the distortions that bias inflicts upon markets, we can ensure they operate fairly and efficiently to build a world where a person’s zip code does not determine their outcome in life.” 

Summary of policy priorities:  

• Defending the independence of federal agencies and their ability to enforce our nation’s fair housing and fair lending laws; 
• Protecting established rights by upholding the Fair Housing Act’s longstanding prohibition on housing discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, and sex, and opposing policies and practices that have a discriminatory effect; 
• Promoting fair and affordable housing through first-generation down payment assistance, federal tax credits for home development in distressed neighborhoods, and other equity programs to assist people with less access to homeownership’s wealth building opportunities, inclusive housing, fair and consistent appraisals, and source of income protections; 
• Promoting fair access to lines of credit and equitable lending through new credit score models, appraisal reform, and the preservation of the mortgage servicing reforms adopted during the COVID pandemic; 
• Ensuring all communities have access to climate mitigation efforts and insurance that is fairly priced and adapted to climate change; and 
• Ensuring a robust civil rights framework for responsible housing-related AI systems is adopted through federal and state legislation and rulemaking, as well as private sector policies. 

The full description of NFHA’s policy priorities can be found here. 

The 2025 policy priorities are informed by NFHA’s 2024 Fair Housing Trends Report, which highlights the economic and personal devastation housing and lending discrimination causes to people of color, women, people with disabilities, families with children, and more. These harmful practices impact the American economy through underperformance and make our nation less productive. 

About the National Fair Housing Alliance 

The National Fair Housing Alliance® (NFHA™) is the country’s only national civil rights organization dedicated solely to eliminating all forms of housing and lending discrimination and ensuring equal opportunities for all people. As the trade association for over 170 fair housing and justice-centered organizations and individuals throughout the U.S. and its territories, NFHA works to dismantle longstanding barriers to equity and build diverse, inclusive, well-resourced communities.