HUD Proposes to Roll Back Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing for Affordable Housing
(June 3, 2025) On June 2nd, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said it is proposing to remove long-standing requirements for affordable housing communities to broadly and intentionally market available units in a way that helps overcome discrimination.
The requirements, called Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing (AFHM) regulations, require participants in certain federal housing programs – like the Multifamily Housing programs that LeadingAge’s members participate in – to market available units to those “least likely to apply.” The regulations currently state that a marketing program “shall typically involve publicizing to minority persons the availability of housing opportunities regardless of race, color, religion, sex, handicap or familial status or national origin, through the type of media customarily utilized by the applicant, including minority publications or other minority outlets which are available in the housing market area.” Additionally, the current regulations require applicants to submit AFHM plans (AFHMPs) to be approved by HUD and made available for public inspection. The requirements were designed to limit even unintended discriminatory effects within housing marketing practices and to make housing access more fair.
HUD lists several reasons for the proposed rescission, including purported unlawfulness of the approach, the ineffectiveness of the requirements at preventing discrimination, the administration’s broader deregulatory agenda, and the burden associated with the requirements.
LeadingAge fully supports fair housing efforts and requirements, including affirmative requirements that are designed to address decades of systemic housing discrimination in America. LeadingAge also supports streamlining efforts that reduce burden and improve effectiveness of approaches; it will work with its members to submit comments to HUD that recommend more constructive approaches to improving fair housing marketing requirements. Comments are due to HUD at the end of July, and LeadingAge expects HUD to move forward with the rescission at that time.
Contact: Annalyse Komoroske Denio, akomoroskedenio@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8866