Advancing civil rights and racial justice demands fair, affordable, and accessible housing.

Who lives where—and in what kind of home—is deeply affected by systemic and individual discriminatory policies and practices, which have shifted forms but persisted for centuries.

Our nation’s history of racist housing policies and practices is directly connected to today’s over-policing and disinvestment in Black and Brown communities, as well as the disproportionate and tragic harm that disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic have on people of color. Controlling access to quality, affordable homes has underpinned racism for far too long, in far too many ways.

Redlining in the 1930s denied Black households access to home mortgages and drew community lines along racial boundaries that still exist today. Individuals and families continue to be denied rental housing because of their race. Government and private investments and policies benefit majority-white communities over everyone else, again and again. This has to change.

Housing Action Illinois is committed to advancing racial justice by expanding access to good, affordable homes for all.

We commit to listening to communities of color and communities that have not received investment, and we commit to shaping our programs and policy agenda with this expertise.

Addressing Housing Discrimination

What Is Fair Housing?

Fair housing is the right to choose housing free from unlawful discrimination. Fair housing laws, which protect against discrimination, are crucial, because where you live affects everything else in your life—your health, access to education, opportunities for employment, and more. The Fair Housing Act, passed in 1968 in the aftermath of the Chicago Freedom Movement and the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., committed our nation to a goal that we still fight for today: to eliminate housing discrimination and create equal opportunity in every community.

Today, more protected classes are included in the Fair Housing Act, and many of our communities are more diverse and welcoming than they were in 1968. The Obama Administration took an important step in 2015 to fight housing discrimination by strengthening existing federal rules for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), which require local governments that receive certain federal funds to analyze challenges to fair housing choice and establish their own goals and priorities to address the fair housing barriers in their communities.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recent Fair Housing Developments:

• In February 2023, HUD published a new proposed AFFH Equity Plan and HUD Review and Compliance Proceduresrulein the Federal Register. Our partners at the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) have been analyzing the proposed rule and are generally pleased with the proposal, although they do have some suggestions for changes. They outline the five positive overarching features of the proposed rule as:
  1. Greatly increased community engagement requirements
  2. Greater public transparency
  3. A more direct incorporation of the new fair housing Equity Plan’s goals, strategies, actions, and expected funding allocations into jurisdictions’ and public housing agencies’ plans
  4. Annual evaluations of progress toward achieving fair housing goals
  5. Clarification of and new emphasis on the need for a balanced approach to affirmatively furthering fair housing

View a fuller NLIHC analysis here. Comments are due by April 10, 2023 and can be submitted at this Regulations.gov page.

• In March 2021, President Biden, as part of his infrastructure plan, The American Jobs Plan Act, called to eliminate exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies and recommended that Congress enact a competitive grant programthat awards flexible funding to local governments that take concrete steps to eliminate barriers to producing affordable housing. In many communities, exclusionary zoning laws (such as minimum lot sizes, mandatory parking requirements and prohibitions on multifamily housing) have made housing more expensive and limited housing choices. This is a significant factor contributing to racial and economic segregation in our society.
• In February 2021, in accordance with an executive order by President Biden, HUD announced it would enforce the Fair Housing Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination to include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
• In January 2021, President Biden called on HUD to examine whether Trump administration changes to several rules (including Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice, and HUD’s Implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s Disparate Impact Standard) harmed access to fair housing.
• At the beginning of 2018, under the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) suspended the AFFH rule. In August 2020, the Trump administration issued a final rule repealing it. This effectively gutted a critical tool for achieving greater desegregation and housing equity.

Housing discrimination and segregation continue to persist in many forms nationwide, and we have a long way to go to build truly inclusive, equitable communities.

Fair Housing Month

Each April, we celebrate Fair Housing Month to reaffirm our commitment to ending housing discrimination and to commemorate the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act in 1968.