At 36 days and counting, the ongoing federal government shutdown is the longest in U.S. history.
The effects have been wide-ranging, from understaffed air traffic control towers to reduced funds for food stamp benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to processing delays for applications submitted to government-insured mortgage programs.
For more than a month, the federal government has not enforced the Fair Housing Act, passed in 1968 as part of the broader Civil Rights Act to prohibit housing discrimination and ensure equal housing access.
Hundreds of staffing cuts at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on day 10 of the government shutdown were concentrated in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), though a federal judge subsequently blocked the mass layoffs that numbered in the thousands across the federal workforce.
The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) reports that because of these terminations, HUD’s FHEO now has one-third of the staff it had prior to the start of the second Trump administration.
Against this backdrop, the NFHA on Wednesday published its 2025 Fair Housing Trends Report, highlighting the pervasiveness of housing discrimination across U.S. communities and calling on Congress “to hold an immediate oversight hearing and ensure HUD’s fair housing programs are fully funded.”
“This report sends a very clear message: America is in the midst of a fair and affordable housing crisis,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the NFHA, in a press release. “And what makes this moment especially alarming is that our civil rights infrastructure itself is under attack across the country.”
The shutdown-driven halt in fair housing enforcement comes as federal agencies actively unwind statutes and regulations promoting fair lending and equitable housing access, in alignment with President Donald Trump’s executive orders outlawing “diversity, equity and inclusion” and disparate-impact liability.
In March, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte terminated special purpose credit programs deployed by mortgage lenders and state housing agencies to target the provision of mortgage credit to historically underserved borrowers and zip codes.
In July, the FHFA issued a rule to repeal a portion of the Code of Federal Regulations established during the Biden administration to require its regulated entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to “engage in equitable housing finance planning.”
Through the spring, HUD Secretary Scott Turner terminated the Biden-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule while also taking steps to undo disparate-impact portions of the Fair Housing Act, which HUD administers.
In an emailed response to Scotsman Guide’s request for comment, a HUD spokesperson said the agency “is restoring fair housing enforcement to its core statutory mission,” describing fair housing policies under President Joe Biden as “ideological enforcement on the basis of DEI, gender ideology extremism, and climate change.”
Disparate-impact discrimination refers to a seemingly neutral policy or action that results in disproportionate and unjustified negative harm to a group, regardless of intent. Since 2013, a string of appellate rulings have affirmed that disparate-impact discrimination is “cognizable” under the Fair Housing Act.
In 2015, the Supreme Court clarified the standard by which claims of disparate-impact discrimination can be brought under the Fair Housing Act. In its decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project Inc., the court ruled that claims based on statistical disparities fail without “robust causality.”
Nevertheless, Trump issued an executive order in April making it “the policy of the United States to eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts,” tasking heads of federal agencies with bringing their operations into compliance.
Without public notice or comment, HUD submitted a final rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Sept. 9 to roll back HUD’s 2023 Disparate Impact Rule.
“Fair housing enforcement is prioritizing real instances of intentional discrimination, ending Biden’s politicization of fair housing law,” the HUD spokesperson said.
The NFHA contended in a Sept. 9 letter addressed to HUD Secretary Scott Turner and OMB Director Russell Vought that the proposed final rule would “undoubtedly violate the Fair Housing Act as well as the Administrative Procedure Act.”
The NFHA report released this week found that 32,321 housing discrimination complaints were filed nationwide in 2024, one of the highest figures in more than two decades, according to NFHA’s analysis of HUD, Department of Justice, and state and local Fair Housing Assistance Program data.
Disability-related discrimination comprised the largest share of complaints at 54.6%, followed by race, national origin, sex, familial status and religion. NFHA reported that complaints based on national origin rose 8.45% from 2023, reaching their highest levels since 2018.
“Congress must ensure HUD’s fair housing programs are fully funded and exercises its oversight authority over HUD to ensure decades of civil rights progress is not reversed through unlawful executive action,” commented Nikitra Bailey, executive vice president of NFHA.
Private, nonprofit fair housing organizations processed the most housing discrimination complaints, responsible for 74% of all reported complaints in 2024. Rental-related housing discrimination complaints were the most common of any complaint transaction type, as has been the case in prior years, the report indicated.
