Not for nothing, while Donald Trump is threatening national security, he's also just messing with the domestic security of his favorite target, people of color. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is proposing a new rule to weaken fair housing enforcement in federal housing programs.
The Washington Post reports that the administration says its rollbacks of federal fair housing efforts include "redefining what it means to promote fair housing, eliminating the assessment used to examine and address barriers to racial integration, and encouraging cities to remove regulations that stand in the way of affordable housing." States and localities would be freed from federal regulations ensuring that people of color have equal access to safe and affordable housing, basically.
Thomas Silverstein, who focuses on housing for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Post that "discrimination and segregation will continue unabated when HUD doesn't provide meaningful fair housing oversight of local governments." He also pointed out that the rules and funding incentives punish the high-cost cities on the coasts that Trump hates so much and reward smaller cities with lower housing costs.
This will mean the five-decade effort to address housing segregation and its lasting effects will be halted, Lisa Rice, president and chief executive of the National Fair Housing Alliance, told the Post. "Those lingering effects are still with us today," Rice said. "There is an inextricable link between race, place and opportunity. The fact is that communities of color disproportionately do not have banks, do not have grocery stores, do not have basic infrastructure or equal access to municipal services and amenities like sewer lines and paved roads."
They also won't have access to fair housing, health care, and food assistance under the Trump administration.