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Obama making bid to diversify wealthy neighborhoods
The Hill ^ | June 11, 2015 | Tim Devaney

Posted on 06/11/2015 5:12:49 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an “unrealistic utopia.”

A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.

The regulations would use grant money as an incentive for communities to build affordable housing in more affluent areas while also taking steps to upgrade poorer areas with better schools, parks, libraries, grocery stores and transportation routes as part of a gentrification of those communities.

“HUD is working with communities across the country to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all,” a HUD spokeswoman said. “The proposed policy seeks to break down barriers to access to opportunity in communities supported by HUD funds.”

It’s a tough sell for some conservatives. Among them is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who argued that the administration “shouldn’t be holding hostage grant monies aimed at community improvement based on its unrealistic utopian ideas of what every community should resemble.”

“American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government,” said Gosar, who is leading an effort in the House to block the regulations.

Civil rights advocates, meanwhile, are praising the plan, arguing that it is needed to break through decades-old barriers that keep poor and minority families trapped in hardscrabble neighborhoods.

“We have a history of putting affordable housing in poor communities,” said Debby Goldberg, vice president at the National Fair Housing Alliance.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited direct and intentional housing discrimination, such as a real estate agent not showing a home in a wealthy neighborhood to a black family or a bank not providing a loan based on someone’s race.

But HUD is looking to root out more subtle forms of discrimination that take shape in local government policies that unintentionally harm minority communities, known as “disparate impact.”

“This rule is not about forcing anyone to live anywhere they don’t want to,” said Margery Turner, senior vice president at the left-leaning Urban Institute. “It’s really about addressing long-standing practices that prevent people from living where they want to.”

“In our country, decades of public policies and institutional practices have built deeply segregated and unequal neighborhoods,” Turner said.

Children growing up in poor communities have less of a chance of succeeding in life, because they face greater exposure to violence and crime, and less access to quality education and health facilities, Turner suggested.

“Segregation is clearly a problem that is blocking upward mobility for children growing up today,” she said.

To qualify for certain funds under the regulations, cities would be required to examine patterns of segregation in neighborhoods and develop plans to address it. Those that don’t could see the funds they use to improve blighted neighborhoods disappear, critics of the rule say.

The regulations would apply to roughly 1,250 local governments.

Hans von Spakovsky, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, called the Obama administration “too race conscious.”

“It’s a sign that this administration seems to take race into account on everything,” Spakovsky said.

Republicans are trying to block the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. Before passing HUD’s funding bill this week, the GOP-led House approved Gosar’s amendment prohibiting the agency from following through with the rule.

Though segregationist policies were outlawed long ago, civil rights advocates say housing discrimination persists.

HUD is looking to break down many barriers, but Gosar suggested the regulation would have negative repercussions.

“Instead of living with neighbors you like and choose, this breaks up the core fabric of how we start to look at communities,” Gosar said. “That just brings unease to everyone in that area.”

“People have to feel comfortable where they live,” he added. “If I don’t feel comfortable in my own backyard, where do I feel comfortable?”

Critics of the rule say it would allow HUD to assert authority over local zoning laws. The agency could dictate what types of homes are built where and who can live in those homes, said Gosar, who believes local communities should make those decisions for themselves rather than relying on the federal government.

If enacted, the rule could depress property values as cheaper homes crop up in wealthy neighborhoods and raise taxes, Gosar warned.

It could also tilt the balance of political power as more minorities are funneled into Republican-leaning neighborhoods, he suggested.

The Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on housing discrimination in a related case in the coming weeks. At issue is whether government policies that unintentionally create a disparate impact for minority communities violate federal laws against segregation.

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs is facing accusations that it makes low-income housing funds more readily available in minority neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. This promotes segregation, critics argue, by encouraging minorities to continue living in poor communities where government assistance is available.

Court observers say the case could have a profound impact on HUD’s rule.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: cabrinigreen; fairhousingact; housing; hud; integration
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

I don’t think Obama is talking wealthy as in mega wealthy oligarch neighborhoods because it is they who own him lock stock and barrel.

He’s talking about screwing up average American middle class neighborhoods.


121 posted on 06/11/2015 5:58:32 PM PDT by apoliticalone (Free speech and the 1st A is dead when it becomes illegal to criticize illegals or any others.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Whites aren’t going to be safe from racial blackmail no matter where they live.


122 posted on 06/11/2015 8:01:51 PM PDT by Crucial (Tolerance at the expense of equal treatment is the path to tyranny.)
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To: Borax Queen

In Oklahoma we make buyers sign a disclosure stating that you are aware of and have read the HOA covenant of restrictions. I understand persons not wanting to be subject to HOA restrictions. I get it and it is a free country and there is plenty of property not subject to those type of restrictions. But yeah, I don’t get people who buy real property subject to those type of restrictions and then get torqued about them.


123 posted on 06/11/2015 8:29:28 PM PDT by kjam22 (my music video "If My People" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74b20RjILy4)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

They automatically assume these “affluent” neighborhoods lead republican. Not true!

The reason people buy in nice neighborhoods is because they can qualify for a mortgage. That means they have a job and they pay their bills on time. My wife and I retired from selling new homes in Texas. Anyone who qualified could buy a house anywhere they wanted.


124 posted on 06/11/2015 9:03:14 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican (I'm very sad for my country. Personally, I've never been happier.)
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Comment #125 Removed by Moderator

To: Cincinatus' Wife

BTTT


126 posted on 06/12/2015 6:58:39 AM PDT by Enlightened1
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Comment #127 Removed by Moderator

Comment #128 Removed by Moderator

To: kjam22

I agree about what you said.

A little aside, but my parents and grandparents lost their modest, middle-class homes in a free republic to the Bolsheviks/Reds. “Lower-income,” non-Catholic families were literally brought into and assigned their homes. The only “choice” for my father’s family was Siberia or Siberia. They fled in the middle of the night and ended up in one of Hitler’s camps. That was much better for them than what Stalin was planning for them.

I’m a little sensitive about the Communist ruler’s latest plan.


129 posted on 06/12/2015 7:57:04 AM PDT by Borax Queen
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To: All

Saw a survey team surveying the 8 wooded acres behind my house. They said the land had been sold and someone was going to build on it but they didn’t know what. He said building won’t start for another year or so. I hope he’s right.

For smaller homes like mine 20 to 30 houses could be built. However, that land had to go for a high price. That means it won’t be feasible to built houses in my price range.

They could build 8 or so houses in the $500,000 and up range. I don’t see that happening but there is a place down the road where they did exactly that.

But, it’s more than likely going to be apartments and possibly Section 8 apartments. Either way, there goes my property value. I’m going to try to get it sold before they start building.

My house is worth around $150,000 to $160,000. Houses on the other side of the property are in the $250 to $300,000 range. They’re really screwed.


130 posted on 06/12/2015 10:25:10 AM PDT by VerySadAmerican (I'm very sad for my country. Personally, I've never been happier.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

You know, I have never seen a person who has cash from being turned away from any home purchase. I have never seen a person turned down for a loan on a house if they had a good job, good credit and the standard down payment (20%).


131 posted on 06/12/2015 11:29:23 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: Let's Roll

I hope he’s not that stupid.
First one of those gang banging morons point a 9mm sideways at me, he’s going to take 3 center mass from a 1911 with a crimson trace. Or he, and his buddies are gonna take head shots from any, or all of my hunter neighbors with 30-06’s and scopes.
If they leave the cocoons of their cities, they are going to find out quickly what 13% of the population means.


132 posted on 06/13/2015 2:48:24 PM PDT by rikkir (Anyone still believe the 8/08 Atlantic cover wasn't 100% accurate?)
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