Current and former HUD officials said they could not recall the housing agency ever pulling back cases of this magnitude in which the agency had found evidence of discrimination. That leaves the yearslong, high-profile investigations in a state of limbo, with no likely path for the government to advance them, current and former officials said. As a result, the alleged perpetrators of the discrimination could face no government penalties, and the alleged victims could receive no compensation.
“I just think that’s a doggone shame,” said Doris Brown, a Houston resident and a co-founder of a community group that, together with a housing nonprofit, filed the Harvey complaint. Brown saw 3 feet of water flood her home in a predominantly Black neighborhood that still shows damage from the storm. “We might’ve been able to get some more money to help the people that are still suffering,” she said.
On Jan. 15, HUD referred the Houston case to the Department of Justice, a necessary step to a federal lawsuit after the housing agency finds evidence of discrimination. Less than a month later, on Feb. 13, the agency rescinded its referral without public explanation. HUD did the same with the Dallas case not long after.
The development has alarmed some about a rollback of civil rights enforcement at the agency under President Donald Trump and HUD Secretary Scott Turner, who is from Texas. “The new administration is systematically dismantling the fair housing enforcement and education system,” said Sara Pratt, a former HUD official and an attorney for complainants in both Texas cases. “The message is: The federal government no longer takes housing discrimination seriously.”
Of course, HUD officials are denying that pulling these cases are being pulled as part of Trump’s effort to sweep white supremacy under the proverbial rug, insisting that the cases are simply being reviewed as the Trump administration is “taking a fresh look at Biden Administration policies.”
Neither Trump nor his MAGA minions have presented a shred of unambiguous evidence that diversity initiatives have had a negative impact on white people, but that hasn’t prevented him from signing anti-DEI executive orders within hours of him being sworn into office. He blames plane crashes on DEI without evidence. He and his cohorts claim DEI has lowered hiring and educational standards without evidence. Yet, in the face of well-put-together housing discrimination cases against Black people and POC, suddenly, a thorough investigation of what has already been investigated is needed. Maybe the Biden administration should have lied and said it was white people who were being discriminated against. Then, it would have been taken at face value and no “fresh look” at the findings would have been necessary.
The Harvey case concerns a portion of a $4.3 billion grant that HUD gave to Texas after the hurricane inundated low-lying coastal areas, killing at least 89 people and causing more than $100 billion in damage. The money was meant to fund better drainage, flood control systems and other storm mitigation measures.
HUD sent the money to a state agency called the Texas General Land Office, which awarded the first $1 billion in funding to communities affected by Harvey through a grant competition. But the state agency excluded Houston and many of the most exposed coastal areas from eligibility for half of that money, according to HUD’s investigation. And, for the other half, it created award criteria that benefited rural areas at the expense of more populous applicants like Houston.
The result: Of that initial $1 billion, Houston — where nearly half of all homes were damaged by the hurricane — received nothing. Neither did Harris County, where Houston is located, or other coastal areas with large minority populations. Instead, the Texas agency, according to HUD, awarded a disproportionate amount of the aid to more rural, white areas that had suffered less damage in the hurricane. After an outcry, GLO asked HUD a few days later to send $750 million to Harris County, but HUD found that allocation still fell far short of the county’s mitigation needs. And none of that money went directly to Houston.
The second case comes straight out of the old playbook of Racist White People Re-segregating Their Neighborhoods By Eliminating Poor People.
Wheter we’re talking about Caucasian suberbanites protesting public transportation in their areas or calls to tear down public housing, white people attacking poverty in an effort to get the minorities out of their neighborhoods under the guise of thwarting rises in crime is a classic passive-aggressive white supremacy tactic — and this case bears all the halmarks of it.
The case revolves around the largely white town of Providence Village, where residence purported to be concerned with rising crime and declining property value, which resulted in the Providence Homeowners Association implementing a rule in 2022 prohibiting property owners from renting to holders of Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. This new rule impacted at least 157 households in Providence Village, nearly all of which were Black households.
The decision by the HOA received national attention, and the Texas legislature couldn’t have that, which is likely why it ruled the HOA’s action to be illegal. Instead, the HOA simply adopted an ammended rule that still placed restrictions on rental properties, and, according to the HUD, would still result in similar discrimination.
Also — surpirse, surprise — the case drawing national attention brought all the racists and white supremacists to the yard.
More from the Tribune:
Throughout the HOA’s efforts, people peppered community social media groups with racist vitriol about voucher holders, describing them as “wild animals,” “ghetto poverty crime ridden mentality people” and “lazy entitled leeching TR@SH.” One person wrote that “they might just leave in a coroner’s wagon.”
The discord attracted a white nationalist group, which twice protested just outside Providence Village. “The federal government views safe White communities as a problem,” flyers distributed by the group read. “The Section 8 Housing Voucher is a tool used to bring diversity to these neighborhoods.”
In January, HUD formally accused the HOA, its board president, a property management company and one of its property managers of violating the Fair Housing Act. The respondents have disputed the allegation.
But let’s be honest: these are the types of racism complaints white conservatives will easily dismiss as “race-baiting” while buying into any ridiculous notion that America’s most dominatnt and privileged racial group, white people, are being systemically discriminated against based on no real evidence whatsoever.
And that’s why we can expect these cases to die under the current administration.
America is moving backward, and that’s exactly what Trump and his people consider making it great again.
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