President Donald Trump’s administration has begun terminating grants to organizations that enforce the Fair Housing Act by taking complaints, investigating and litigating housing discrimination cases for Americans across the country, according to documents and information obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.
The grants are disbursed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to private nonprofits, which act as the frontline enforcement of the federal anti-discrimination law passed in 1968. They educate communities on their rights, test whether a landlord is racially discriminating, investigate complaints, resolve disputes and can help with legal counsel.
Of an estimated 34,000 fair housing complaints lodged in the U.S. in 2023, these private nonprofits processed 75%, according to a report from the National Fair Housing Alliance. The rest were fielded by state and local governments, with HUD and the U.S. Department of Justice working on less than 6% combined.
It is the highest number of complaints since the first report in the 1990s, and over half were lodged for discrimination based on a disability.
Now, of the 162 active grants going to the private nonprofits to do that work, nearly half are slated for cancellation, said Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president at the National Fair Housing Alliance. Bailey added that some organizations rely entirely on the grants and may have to shutter, others will have to lay off staff and limit services.
“It’s doing it at a time when Americans want to see an end to the barrage of rising housing costs and a lack of housing supply,” Bailey said. “They need increased support and intervention from our federal government, not a withdrawal from basic civil rights.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for HUD said: “The Department is responsible for ensuring our grantees and contractors are in compliance with the President’s Executive Orders. If we determine they are not in compliance, then we are required to take action. The Department will continue to serve the American people, including those are facing housing discrimination or eviction.”
The “program really exists because the fair housing laws don’t enforce themselves,” said Maureen St. Cyr, executive director of Massachusetts Fair Housing Center, a group that’s grant is being terminated. “People need lawyers to make those rights a reality.”
St. Cyr listed several scenarios the nonprofit has helped with: a family being denied housing because they have children, a veteran with a disability needing a ramp and a domestic abuse survivor being evicted because of the actions of the abuser.
“We are doing a lot of work with pretty minimal money,” St. Cyr said.
The grants intended for fair housing enforcement, part of HUD’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program, are largely worth $425,000, an amount which is typically issued annually to organizations.
In a termination letter, a copy of which was obtained by the AP, HUD said that the cancellations were at the direction of Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, called DOGE, run partly by billionaire Elon Musk.
The letters caused widespread confusion across the country late Thursday night, as fair housing organizations started communicating through listservs, assessing the potential impacts and trying to find answers.
One of the organizations slated to lose funding, Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit, fields about 200 to 300 fair housing complaints a year and works broadly to resolve housing related problems, such as disputes with landlords, with a coverage area of some 4 million people.
“It’s a significant threat to the viability of our organization at a minimum,” said Steve Tomkowiak, the group’s executive director. “It can threaten the survival of any of the fair housing enforcement organizations.”
For Kimberly Merchant, CEO of Mississippi Center for Justice, the kneecapping of fair housing groups, or their disappearance altogether, would be “open season to discriminate indiscriminately without having to worry about being checked.”
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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
