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EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN HOUSING

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1976

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:46 a.m. in room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Don Edwards [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Edwards, Drinan, Badillo, Dodd, and Butler.

Also present: Janet M. McNair, assistant counsel; and Roscoe B. Starek III, associate counsel.

Mr. EDWARDS. The subcommittee will come to order.

This morning is the second day of subcommittee hearings on the fair housing program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD is operating under a virtual arsenal of legal mandates requiring that it use its resources to bring about equal housing opportunity in this country. Executive orders, civil rights acts and housing dispersal objectives in housing legislation-all direct that HUD seek to assure that minorities, women and the poor have decent housing wherever they wish to live.

This morning, we welcome representatives from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, who will tell us about HUD's enforcement program under these various mandates. We have appearing before us today HUD Undersecretary John B. Rhinelander. Undersecretary Rhinelander assumed his current position on September 23, 1975, prior to which he had served as General Counsel of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Accompanying Undersecretary Rhinelander is Assistant Secretary for Equal Opportunity James H. Blair. Assistant Secretary Blair was confirmed by the Senate for his present position on June 6, 1975. He is responsible for administering the Federal Fair Housing Law, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, and HUD's other civil rights and equal opportunity programs. Prior to coming to HUD, Mr. Blair was executive director of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission.

Undersecretary Rhinelander, Assistant Secretary Blair, we welcome you both.

Please proceed with your statement. Your prepared statement will be made a part of the record. Please proceed in whatever manner you wish.

[The prepared statement of Under Secretary Rhinelander follows:]

(111)

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN B. RHINELANDER, UNDER SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

I am pleased to be here today to provide this Subcommittee with a report on the Department's current civil rights enforcement activities.

I am accompanied by Mr. James H. Blair, Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity and Mr. Robert R. Elliott, the General Counsel of the Department.

In its letter of invitation the Subcommittee indicated to us its desire to have this testimony address activities we have undertaken to discharge our responsibilities under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1984, Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1988 and Section 109 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.

This testimony will describe briefly our activities under each of these authorities and summarize their application to our principal new housing program, Section 8, and our principal community development program, the Community Development Block Grant.

TITLE VIII

Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Fair Housing Title, is the most widely known civil rights statute administered by HUD and probably the one most closely identified with the Department's Civil Rights enforcement activities. It prohibits discrimination based upon race, color, religion, sex or national origin in connection with the sale or rental of almost every dwelling unit in the United States.

Title VIII requires HUD to investigate complaints of housing discrimination and to attempt to resolve such complaints through conference, conciliation or persuasion.

We receive over 3,000 Title VIII complaints per year and that number is increasing. While we have a large case backlog, we are making progress in reducing the time it takes to process a complaint. At the end of fiscal year 1975, we held over 574 complaints more than 180 days old. Today this number has been reduced to 485 and we are working to reduce that number to zero. While the Department has authority to investigate complaints, to subpoena witnesses and records, and to attempt to conciliate, it has no specific authority to require an individual to end a discriminatory housing practice. The administrative remedy provided under Title VIII limits the Department to "the informal methods of conference conciliation and persuasion." Currently, 68% of the cases in which we attempt conciliaton are successfully conciliated.

When conciliation fails, an individual must vindicate his rights without assistance from HUD. The law provides for private action in local or Federal courts for injunctive relief and damages.

Title VIII also authorizes the Attorney General to bring suit in any appropriate United States District Court seeking injunctive relief or other order when he has reasonable cause to believe that any person or group of persons is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the rights granted by Title VIII, or that any group of persons has been denied any of those rights and such denial raises an issue of general public importance.

Suits instituted by the Attorney General have involved not only outright racial discrimination in the sale or rental of homes, but also such practices as discriminatory advertising and exclusion of minorities from multiple listing services. Several of the suts have been against municipal authorities. Others have been against companies controlling thousands of dwelling units and have resulted in orders that required the companies to undertake dramatic remedial efforts to attract minority families.

HUD's compliance and conciliation activities and the suits brought by the Department of Justice have opened to nonwhites a great deal of housing previously available only to whites. They also have had a wide impact in stimulating voluntary compliance with the law.

In addition, using the authority provided by section 808 (e) (5) of Title VIII, HUD has included "Fair Housing" concerns in programs of community development assistance we provide to State and local levels of government, and in programs of assistance to developers of private housing.

Our site selection standards are intended to assure the availability of subsidized housing in nonsegregated areas. They require HUD personnel to evaluate each application for HUD housing assistance for new construction on the basis of a criterion designed to require developers of subsidized housing to locate projects outside areas of racial concentration. This criterion along with other site and neighborhood standards have been incorporated into the regulations implementing the Section 8 new construction program authorized by the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.

Our Affirmative Fair Housing Marketing Regulations require specific efforts to market HUD assisted housing to persons who might not otherwise apply for the units. Each applicant for participation in the FHA subsidized and unsubsidized housing programs is required to pursue affirmative fair housing marketing policies in soliciting buyers and tenants, in determining their eligibility and in concluding sales and rental transactions. Each such applicant must have a program to attract buyers or tenants of all minority and majority groups for initial sale or rental and must carry out such a program during the entire life of the mortgage. Minority media are to be used where appropriate. We require a nondiscriminatory hiring policy and the use of the HUD equal opportunity poster at the project sales or rental office and the E.O. slogan or logo at the project construction site.

The affirmative marketing program adopted by each sponsor is self-imposed. The applicant develops his own plan, but the techniques are specific and once approved, the plan requirement holds the developer to his own standards of expected results. The actions to be taken are clear. The plans are available for public inspection and monthly occupancy or sales reports must be filed. The sanctions for failure or refusal to comply and give satisfactory assurances of future compliance with the affirmative marketing requirement, include all sanctions authorized by Departmental regulations, regulatory agreements, rules or policies including a denial or further participation in Departmental programs.

Our site selection and affirmative marketing requirements are designed to be most effective when applied to newly constructed units. We have developed special marketing requirements to assure that we further "Fair Housing" concerns in administering the program of subsidies for low and moderate income families in existing housing authorized by Section 8. We require of Housing Authorities administering a program for subsidizing the rentals of low and moderate income families in existing rental units under Section 8 the development of a plan which must describe the steps to be taken to accomplish several objectives including (1) participation in the program by a broad range of families within the eligible populatoin (e.g., elderly, large families, working poor, minorities and families headed by women); (22) participation in the program by owners of units in areas outside minority and low-income concentration; (3) development of a system to provide information on the program to persons expected to reside in the community; and (4) the provision of assistance to families seeking to participate in the program who encounter discriminaton during their housing search.

The Congress has specifically incorporated Fair Housing Concerns into the Community Development Block Grant Programs. All applicants for block grant assistance are specifically required to certify compliance with Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Congress asserted as a specific objective of the Community Development Block Grant Program "the reduction of the isolation of income groups within the communities and geographical areas and the promotion of an increase in the diversity and vitality of neighborhoods through the spacial deconcentration of housing opportunities for persons of lower income."

HUD regulations implementing the block grant program specifically require communities to submit a Housing Assistance Plan which identifies that community's housing needs and which establishes realistic goals for meeting those needs. Revised regulations just issued by the Department clarify the requirement that a community include in its Housing Assistance Plan an assessment of needs with respect to those expected to reside in the community as well as those already there. Our revised regulations apply to Housing Assistant Plans submitted with second year appliacations. In addition, these revised regulations clarify the requirements with respect to the data a community must or may

rely on to support its Housing Assistance Plan, and require the community to establish three year housing goals, in addition to one year goals, responsive to identified housing needs of various categories of households (e.g., elderly, large families, etc.) We believe these changes will improve the contribution that the block grant program can make in furthering Title VIII “Fair Housing" policies.

Although the Section 8 program is still relatively new and only a few thousand families are actually in occupancy, there are some encouraging signs that implementation of this program is furthering our Fair Housing goals. In St. Petersburg, both elderly and non-elderly families-minority and non-minority-have been able to find housing in virtually every section of the city. Less than 10 percent of the families receiving assistance are leasing the same unit they occupied before entering the program.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Metropolitan Council for Housing and Redevelopment operates a Section 8 program in 13 suburbs. Under agreement with the public housing authorities of the central cities of the region, the Council accepts applications from central city residents who desire to live in the suburbs. Over 200 such applicants have been referred to the Council by the Minneapolis PHA. To assist this kind of effort, the Department has just announced that it will make a special allocation of Section 8 assistance available to area-wide bodies in metropolitan areas with area-wide fair housing plans.

TITLE VI

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that there be no discrimination on grounds of race, color or national origin in any program or activity which receives Federal Financial Assistance.

Enforcement activities involve both individual complaints and compliance reviews. Since 1970 the Department has processed over 1700 complaints from private citizens pursuant to Title VI. Complaint volume under Title VI has dropped in the past eighteen months, as the Department has revamped its housing and community development programs pursuant to the 1974 legislation. The Department has been criticized for its Title VI complaint backlog and we are moving to address this problem. Open complaints declined from 98 as of July 1, 1975, to 68 as of December 31, a decline of 31%. We expect to maintain this progress in the face of the expected volume increase.

While processing individual Title VI complaints is important, such individual complain processing requires the expenditure of time and staff resources which could provide greater return if invested in broad general compliance reviews. For that reason, we are increasingly using individual complaints as an indicator of areas justifying general compliance reviews, and increasing the number of such reviews. In the past we have not done enough in this area. Last fiscal year we did 196 general compliance reviews. We hope to do 600 such reviews this year and 600 general compliance reviews in 1977.

The Department has in the past conducted protracted negotiations after findings of apparent noncompliance with Title VI by HUD recipients. These delays were one of the principal points raised by the Commission on Civil Rights in December 1974. We have undertaken concerted efforts to deal with this problem, and we are achieving results. The number of Title VI complaint cases open 180 days or more has declined from 80 on July 1, 1974, to 37 on July 1, 1975, and to 27 as of December 31, 1975. Outstanding Departmental instructions call for a maximum of 60 days to negotiate findings of apparent noncompliance, after which the file must be referred to Central Office for consideration of enforcement action.

In one of our Regions, six low-rent housing authorities controlling 5,000 units have, after negotiations with HUD, voluntarily complied with Title VI by adopting affirmative tenant selection and assignment plans which have overcome the effects of past discrimination. Twenty-one authorities controlling 16,000 units have adopted plans and are reporting to the Regional Office on their progress, although they are not yet fully in compliance. We presently have a number of cases under review in the Central Office and are prepared to commence administrative proceedings.

SECTION 109

Section 109 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 largely duplicates protections afforded by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Like Title VI, it prohibits discrimination on grounds of race, color or national origin

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