‘Tenuous Theories of Discrimination’
The slowdown can be traced, at least in part, to new procedures that stripped career officials of the authority to approve settlements or issue charges, said Ms. Gaige, a career employee for the past 13 years.
Instead, only a small number of Trump appointees now have that authority. While every new administration brings political appointees to top roles, not one has monopolized the work flow so thoroughly, including the first Trump administration, Ms. Gaige said.
“With one email, the entire process was shut down,” she said. “It essentially stopped the settlement process, which is time sensitive because complainants and respondents come to an agreement about what they want to do to resolve a case. And often that is driven by specific deadlines that are occurring in people’s lives.”
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Jacy Gaige was the director of enforcement in HUD’s fair housing office until she quit in July. Before she did, she wrote to Senator Elizabeth Warren, raising an alarm about changes inside the office.Credit...Jason Henry for The New York Times
In addition, 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 That case had been referred to the Justice Department, but the referral was abruptly withdrawn by the new Trump appointees.
“The sudden abandonment of the case was a pretty significant about-face,” said Rebecca Livengood, a lawyer with Relman Colfax in Washington, D.C., who represented the housing authority that had sued the homeowner’s association. “There’s every reason to think that in another administration, what were, at that point, sustained allegations of widespread racial discrimination would have been pursued.”
Fair housing cases have historically covered a broad range of civil rights violations.
They have involved landlords refusing to rent to single mothers with children, or people of a certain religion. They have combated discrimination against disabled veterans who needed to live with a service animal. They have targeted real estate agents who did not want to show Black buyers homes in white neighborhoods. And in recent years, they have protected survivors of domestic violence from being denied housing assistance when attempting to escape a stalker or abuser.
Last week, John Gibbs, the Trump-appointed principal deputy assistant secretary for fair housing, sent two memos detailing how “future enforcement efforts will proceed.”
In previous administrations, he wrote, fair housing offices “leveraged the Fair Housing Act” against mortgage providers, appraisers and others “in an ideological matter,” but that would now change.
Cases involving “tenuous theories of discrimination” would “no longer be prioritized,” he wrote.
The types of cases identified by Mr. Gibbs had been central to the office’s work.
They included appraisal bias, which typically involves white appraisers undervaluing homes owned by Black families; zoning restrictions used to block housing that might be occupied by Black and Latino families; and gender or gender expression cases, including new housing protections added under the Biden administration.
The memos also described previous approaches to redlining and reverse redlining as “legally unsound.” The two racist practices involve denying mortgages to minorities and those in minority neighborhoods, and other predatory and discriminatory lending practices. A full review of the organization’s guidance on those subjects, he added, was ongoing.
‘In Mortal Danger’
The staff reassignments and cuts have been particularly hard felt in the handling of housing complaints under the Violence Against Women Act, a 1994 law designed to protect women from stalking, assault and domestic violence that was updated in 2022 to include new housing protections for the growing number of survivors of domestic violence.
About 500 women a year reach out to HUD to request help under the law, but only two of the six lawyers remaining in the fair housing office have experience with the law, according to interviews with the lawyers.
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Paul Osadebe, a lawyer in HUD’s fair housing office, began organizing his coworkers to come forward. “We took an oath to the constitution,” he said.Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
“These are life and death requests,” said Mr. Osadebe, one of the lawyers being transferred next month. “These women are legitimately in mortal danger, and often without the government stepping in, nothing will be done.”
Mr. Osadebe said he and his fellow lawyers were told in January that they could not communicate directly with the people who filed complaints, making it virtually impossible to do their jobs. “They cut us out of the process,” he said.
Mr. Osadebe is an organizer with the Federal Unionists Network, a group of workers and their supporters who are working across the federal government to push back against the Trump administration changes.
“This is a deliberate plan, and it’s about shutting down fair housing,” he said.
‘Dire Consequences’
Ms. Gaige took a different protest route. She quit in July, but only after firing off an email to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee responsible for overseeing HUD.
The nation’s fair housing laws were no longer being enforced, she wrote. Someone needed to intervene.
Others in the office sounded the alarm as well.
Erik Heins, a lawyer in charge of enforcement, wrote two emails to HUD’s Office of General Counsel in June, outlining the serious repercussions of the staffing reassignments to other offices.
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Erik Heins was a lawyer in charge of enforcement at HUD’s office of fair housing. In June, he wrote emails raising an alarm over staff cuts, and was fired six days later. Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
“It was very clear pretty quickly that this was not about solving a need in those offices,” Mr. Heins said in an interview. “My staff was being retaliated against for being civil rights practitioners, and losing a dozen civil rights attorneys would cripple HUD’s ability to enforce its civil rights protections.”
Six days after sending those emails, he was informed by Amy Brown, HUD’s deputy general counsel for housing programs, that he had engaged in “unacceptable conduct.” He was fired the same day.
“As a manager, you are expected to be professional and trustworthy in your conduct to support the Agency’s goals and mission,” Ms. Brown wrote.
In other emails about the cuts and reassignments, HUD managers told lawyers who raised concerns that they “appreciate your feedback,” but were committed to having a “full-time staff reassigned who are fully committed to the workload, goals and objectives of that office.”
Those not wanting to be “voluntarily reassigned” were told that they would be “subject to removal,” according to memos reviewed by The Times.
Early this month, four current staff members of the fair housing office also reached out to Ms. Warren and provided her with documents they had compiled backing up their allegations.
On Monday, according to a spokesman for Ms. Warren, the senator sent a request to Brian Harrison, HUD’s acting inspector general, to open an investigation into the office. The allegations, she wrote, “suggest that HUD is no longer enforcing Fair Housing and Civil Rights Laws — with dire consequences.”
Mr. Osadebe, who like some of the lawyers describes himself as a whistleblower, said he knows his job may be on the line for speaking up.
“We took an oath to defend the constitution,” he said. “These are the moments we took that oath for.”
Trump was found guilty of housing discrimination! Of course he's going to roll back enforcement.