HUD announced nine Fair Housing Act charges of discrimination issued over the past six months, four alleging familial-status discrimination and three alleging disability discrimination. The department said its Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has reduced the backlog of pending Title VIII complaints by 46% since September 1, 2025, a backlog it attributed to the Biden administration.
A 2024 HUD Office of Inspector General report found approximately 70% of fair housing cases were not closed within the statutory 100-day timeline.
Real Estate News · on rescission of HUD's design-and-construction accessibility liability interpretation
HUD rescinded an Obama-era interpretation that allowed Fair Housing Act accessibility complaints against multifamily buildings at any time, replacing it with guidance limiting design-and-construction claims to one year after construction is completed. HUD estimated the prior interpretation's costs on owners exceeded $110 million over the past five years; Secretary Turner said the action "rescinds unnecessary and expensive liability created by legal theories that have no basis in law."
The guidance is part of HUD's September 1 announcement (HUD No. 26-063), whose Fair Market Rent and Moving to Work provisions were reported earlier this week.
Next City reported that an Ithaca, N.Y. landlord argued source-of-income discrimination laws force landlords to consent to government inspections in violation of the Fourth Amendment, that courts have twice agreed, and that the argument has since appeared in a dozen cases across the country. Per University at Buffalo law professor Heather Abraham, 24 states and 150 counties or municipalities have source-of-income discrimination laws, and 60% of voucher holders live in areas covered by them.
HUD · on rescission of Fair Housing Act design-and-construction claims guidance
HUD rescinded prior guidance on the Fair Housing Act's statute of limitations for design-and-construction claims and issued new guidance applying statutory time limits to such violations, replacing what the department called an Obama-era legal interpretation. HUD said the previous guidance imposed over $110 million in what it described as onerous repair costs on building owners over the last five years. Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Craig Trainor announced the change alongside Secretary Scott Turner.
On August 26, a federal judge in Massachusetts froze HUD's separate planned restructuring of Fair Housing Initiatives Program grants while litigation proceeds.
Multnomah County deleted three questions related to race, sexual orientation and preferred language from the survey it uses to determine who qualifies for subsidized housing, after federal officials opened investigations into the county's screening practices and a disabled applicant filed a discrimination lawsuit. The survey, administered by trained providers to anyone seeking housing support, generally requires a score of at least 16 points to qualify for the county's priority housing pool. A county spokesperson disputed the characterization that the tool scored applicants by race, writing that it "has never included any scored questions about race."
A Justice Department official announced an investigation into the county's housing-support practices in May 2026, and HUD announced its own Fair Housing Act investigation of the screening tool the same month.
U.S. District Judge Myong Joun of the District of Massachusetts on August 26 blocked HUD's plan to restructure Fair Housing Initiatives Program grants, ordering the agency to distribute the funds under the previous year's framework in a suit brought in July by the National Fair Housing Alliance and the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center. Joun wrote that HUD's reasons for the replacement funding notice were "pretextual" and that its modernization rationale "belies credulity," noting the proposal contained only five awards and excluded organizations with annual budgets below $5 million; the plan would have affected more than 100 community-based nonprofit fair housing organizations. A HUD spokesperson said the agency "stands behind the lawfulness of its NOFOs" and will avail itself of all legal options.
The affected organizations collectively handle about 75% of housing discrimination complaints filed in the U.S., per the article.
Federal Register · on seven agencies' rescission of 2022 special-purpose credit program guidance
Seven agencies — the FDIC, NCUA, OCC, CFPB, HUD, DOJ, and FHFA — published a notice rescinding the February 2022 Interagency Statement on Special Purpose Credit Programs, effective on its August 25 publication. The 2022 statement had encouraged lenders to use the Equal Credit Opportunity Act's special-purpose credit program provision to meet the credit needs of specified classes of persons; the notice states that all such programs must comply with ECOA, Regulation B, and the Fair Housing Act, and that federal law does not authorize generalized remedial "equity" initiatives absent specific cases of unlawful discrimination.
HUD withdrew its own special-purpose credit program guidance in September 2025, and the CFPB withdrew its December 2020 advisory opinion on the programs as of June 17, 2026.
Senators Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand and Representatives Dwight Evans and Brian Fitzpatrick reintroduced the bipartisan VITAL Act (S.5285/H.R.10049), which would reform the Low Income Housing Tax Credit to require that at least 40% of states' LIHTC units be disability adaptable and accessible, or at least 20% in walkable or rollable neighborhoods. The bill would also increase credits for accessible projects in walkable neighborhoods and raise the LIHTC annual state allocation.
Less than six percent of the nation's housing stock is accessible for people with mobility-related disabilities, per NLIHC.
A federal judge in the District of Rhode Island rejected grant conditions the administration imposed on federal grants administered by HHS and HUD in Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence v. Kennedy. The plaintiff coalition of domestic violence, sexual assault, housing, youth, and homelessness organizations had sued to block conditions targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and transgender rights; Democracy Forward said the decision follows an earlier order preliminarily blocking the restrictions.
The case was filed July 21, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the same court that set aside HUD's FY2026 CoC NOFO on August 7.
Human Rights Watch · on HRW findings on HUD fair-housing enforcement
Human Rights Watch released a report on federal civil rights enforcement finding that HUD closed or halted at least 115 fair housing complaints without findings, which the report said was in some cases in apparent defiance of federal regulations requiring investigation of every complaint. The report said HUD's Office of Fair Housing shrank from 31 staffers to 11, and cited an August 2025 whistleblower complaint by career attorneys describing a gag order barring fair housing attorneys from contacting complainants or the Justice Department.
HUD's proposed rescission of its disparate-impact rule, published Aug. 10, has a comment deadline of Oct. 9.
Landlords in two New York voucher-discrimination cases are arguing that New York City's source-of-income law should be struck down, extending a March ruling by an upstate state Supreme Court justice that held requiring apartment inspections for Section 8 vouchers constituted an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment. The defenses seek to extend that ruling to the city-funded CityFHEPS program, and Housing Works attorney Armen Merjian said similar challenges are underway in California, Virginia and Missouri.
New York's Court of Appeals is scheduled to review the upstate ruling, People v. Commons West, in October.