Community-Based Groups Ask Court to Halt HUD Funding Directive that Threatens to Close or Gut More than 100 Local, Nonprofit Fair Housing Organizations Nationwide
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Community-Based Groups Ask Court to Halt HUD Funding Directive that Threatens to Close or Gut More than 100 Local, Nonprofit Fair Housing Organizations Nationwide
Latest Attacks Threatens Housing Protections for Veterans, Families with Children, Seniors, People with Disabilities, and more
Washington, D.C. — The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), the country’s only national civil rights organization dedicated solely to eliminating all forms of housing and lending discrimination, and the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, the oldest, nonprofit fair housing organization in Massachusetts, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to halt the agency’s latest attempt to dismantle the primary funding program used to support fair housing in the country. If allowed to stand, the changes will leave everyday people in communities nationwide with little recourse to combat illegal housing discrimination. Represented by national civil rights law firm Relman Colfax, a complaint was filed in the U. S. District Court in the District of Massachusetts that seeks to prevent HUD from unlawfully issuing congressionally appropriated funds in a manner that will destroy many of the over 100 local, nonprofit fair housing organizations around the country that enforce the Fair Housing Act (FHA) on a daily basis.
As detailed in the complaint, Congress created the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) in 1987 to fund community-based, private fair housing organizations to carry out the purpose of the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968 and ensure equal housing opportunity for all people and communities. When funding the program, Congress made clear that the work of these organizations is necessary—not optional or interchangeable, nor subject to political whim. For the nearly four decades since the FHIP program was established, the resulting network of community-based fair housing organizations has worked tirelessly to ensure that all people can obtain and maintain the housing of their choice free from discrimination. Instead of allowing that work to continue, HUD is now channeling FHIP funds to a few favored entities, including large law schools, that will promote the Administration’s personal preferences rather than Congress’s intent to prevent and remedy the very real housing discrimination millions in our country suffer every year. This extreme change in direction is illegitimate and stands in direct contradiction of the Fair Housing Act and Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, and otherwise violates the law.
This latest attack on fair housing is this Administration’s third direct assault on the FHIP program. Relman Colfax filed a case on behalf of a class of over 60 fair housing organizations, including both plaintiffs in this suit, whose FHIP grants were unjustly terminated by HUD. The court granted a temporary restraining order in March 2025 and HUD reinstated the grants. In June of that same year, Relman Colfax, representing NFHA as well as a local fair housing center, filed a federal lawsuit against HUD’s unprecedented and unlawful refusal to administer the Fiscal Year 2024 FHIP funds. That court, too, enjoined HUD’s unlawful conduct.
Now HUD is trying once again to decimate the FHIP program. HUD has made sweeping and unlawful changes to the standard Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for Fiscal Year 2025 and 2026 FHIP appropriations, which set out how the agency plans to spend congressionally appropriated funds. As the complaint describes, the 2025 NOFO eliminates the two primary forms of FHIP funding and the 2026 NOFO includes conditions that effectively prevent local, nonprofit fair housing organizations from receiving money. The FY2025 NOFO contemplates using $46 million of the $56 million in the FY2025 appropriation for just five grants–as opposed to the usual of over 100 grants ranging from $75,000 to $425,000. One of the grants outlined in the FY2025 NOFO will be worth $25 million, made available to a single favored law school. The remaining $10 million of the FY2025 appropriation will be for an Administrative Enforcement Initiative award to a state or local agency, which are separately funded by Congress through a different program.
“When a family faces an act of discrimination, they don’t call someone in HUD’s D.C. offices for help. They call one of the more than 100 private, nonprofit fair housing organizations throughout the nation. That call often comes on a person’s worst day. It’s answered with compassion and swift action, and it saves the federal government money. NFHA’s member organizations handle three in four housing discrimination complaints every year. HUD handles fewer than one in twenty,” said Nikitra Bailey, NFHA Executive Vice President. “Virtually all these community-based organizations depend on FHIP’s critical funding to operate, and many will not survive without it. Those that do survive will have to reduce services considerably. If the local network goes dark, the complaints don’t move to the federal government. They go unanswered and people nationwide will be left without recourse.”
The NOFOs also introduce new eligibility criteria that will disqualify nearly all existing fair housing organizations by overhauling the merit review process in a way that disfavors existing, experienced organizations, introducing a subjective “risk review”, and requiring recipients to comply with a host of vague, inapplicable, and potentially unlawful executive orders. The result will be a steep and immediate drop in fair housing work across the country. Without intervention, funding for fair housing enforcement and education will cease and many fair housing organizations will be forced to shutter. This means no fair housing services for many overlooked and underserved communities and populations, including rural residents, veterans, people with disabilities, and more.
“For almost 40 years, the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center has played a critical role in the lives of so many. When our veterans return home, we are the ones fighting for them to make sure they receive the ramps or grab bars they need, and the help they need combating the effects of PTSD. We make sure that children can live in homes free of lead paint, so they do not suffer the lifelong neurological effects of lead poisoning. We help our seniors age in place, so that they do not have to leave the place they’ve called home for decades,” said Vineeth Hemavathi, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center. “Without the funding that Congress identified as essential 40 years ago, our veterans, families, and seniors will have no one to fight for them, to ensure they enjoy full access to their homes.”
“Depriving these organizations of their funding will have catastrophic consequences and the well-being of families across the nation hangs in the balance. If allowed to continue, HUD will leave seniors who cannot navigate the steps into their apartments with no one to call, force people facing eviction to stand up in court alone, leave people experiencing domestic violence without help, send families illegally excluded from housing into homelessness, deny housing access to disabled veterans, and more.” said Reed Colfax, Co-Managing Partner at Relman Colfax. “We will continue to ensure the Fair Housing Act is upheld by those sworn to protect it and not subject to political whim.”
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About the National Fair Housing Alliance
The National Fair Housing Alliance leads a coalition that works to build inclusive, well-resourced, and resilient communities; expand equitable opportunities; and end housing discrimination.
About Relman Colfax PLLC
Relman Colfax PLLC is one of the nation’s premier civil rights law firms committed to advancing justice through high-impact litigation, legal counseling, and strategic advocacy.