White House Hesitates To Bring Back Fair Housing Rule

WASHINGTON — The White House is hesitating to finalize a government policy meant to reduce housing segregation out of fear it would cause a conservative backlash, according to a senior official.

The Biden administration’s new proposal is a redo of a fair housing rule that Donald Trump rescinded in 2020. He’d claimed it would “destroy” the suburbs, in a signature display of the white identity politics that fueled his political rise.

In one of his first acts as president, Joe Biden issued a memorandum ordering the Department of Housing and Urban Development to bring back the fair housing rule, as a way to make up for decades of federal housing policies responsible for boosting racial segregation.

The department first rolled out the revamped housing regulations last February as part of a formal rulemaking process that invites comments from the public. But because the White House is being “chickenshit,” an official with knowledge of the process told HuffPost, the new rules still haven’t been finalized.

“It’s sitting at the White House while advisors play politics and now dangle the possibility of a rule in January 2025,” the official said. “The administration made a promise, and now it’s time to make good. Black and brown communities have waited long enough.”

A spokesperson for HUD said it’s “not accurate” to say there’s been some political holdup: “We are currently working on the rule” with a sub-agency under the Office of Management and Budget, which determines how much agency policies will cost, the spokesperson told HuffPost, adding that the rule is still “going through the interagency process.”

Spokespeople for the White House and OMB declined to comment.

Sara Pratt, who worked on a previous version of the rule as