[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 22, 1994)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 8513-8515]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-4136]
[[Page Unknown]]
[Federal Register: February 22, 1994]
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Part III
The President
_______________________________________________________________________
Memorandum of January 17--
Federal Leadership of Fair Housing
Presidential Documents
Federal Register
Vol. 59, No. 35
Tuesday, February 22, 1994
____________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
Memorandum of January 17, 1994
Federal Leadership of Fair Housing
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and
Agencies
On April 11, 1968, one week after the assassination of
the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.,
the Fair Housing Act was enacted (1) to prohibit
discrimination in housing, and (2) to direct the
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to
affirmatively further fair housing in Federal housing
and urban development programs. Twenty-five years
later, despite a strengthening of the Fair Housing Act
5 years ago, hundreds of acts of housing discrimination
occur in our Nation each day.
Americans of every income level, seeking to live where
they choose, feel the weight of discrimination because
of the color of their skin, their race, their religion,
their gender, their country of origin, or because they
are disabled or have children.
An increasing body of evidence indicates that barriers
to fair housing are pervasive. Forty percent of all
families move every 5 years. This statistic is
significant given the results of a recent study,
commissioned by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), which found that more than half of
the African Americans and Latinos seeking to rent or
buy a home are treated differently than whites with the
same qualifications. moreover, based upon Home Mortgage
Disclosure Act data, the number of minority persons who
are rejected when attempting to obtain loans to
purchase homes is two to three times higher than it is
for nonminorities in almost every metropolitan area of
this country.
Racial and ethnic segregation, both in the private
housing market and in public assisted housing, has been
well documented. Despite legislation (the Fair Housing
Act) and Executive action (Executive Order No. 11063),
the divisive impact of housing segregation persists in
metropolitan areas all across this country. Too many
lower income and minority Americans face barriers to
housing outside of central cities. Segregation in
housing and schools deprives too many of our children
and youth of an opportunity to enter the marketplace or
work on an equal footing. For too many families, our
cities are no longer the launching pads for economic
self-sufficiency and upward mobility that they have
been for countless immigrants and minorities since the
country's birth. And many Americans who are better off
abandon the cities.
The resulting decline in the very heart of too many of
our metropolitan areas threatens all of us: the health
of our dynamic regional economies--the very lifeblood
of future national economic growth and higher living
standards for all of us and all of our children--is
placed at risk.
We can do better. We can start by making sure that our
own Federal policies and programs across all of our
agencies support the fair housing and equal opportunity
goals to which all Americans are committed. If all of
our executive agencies affirmatively further fair
housing in the design of their policies and
administration of their programs relating to housing
and urban development, a truly nondiscriminatory
housing market will be closer to achievement.
By an Executive Order (``the Order'') I am issuing
today and this memorandum, I am addressing those needs.
The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and,
where appropriate, the Attorney General--the officials
with the primary responsibility for the enforcement of
Federal fair housing laws--will take the lead in
developing and coordinating measures to carry out the
purposes of this Order.
Through this Order, I am first expanding Executive
Order No. 11063 to provide protection against
discrimination in programs of Federal insurance or
guaranty to persons who are disabled and to families
with children.
Second, I am revoking the old Executive Order No. 12259
entitled ``Leadership and Coordination of Fair Housing
in Federal Programs.'' The new Executive order reflects
the expanded authority of the Secretary of Housing and
Urban Development and I am directing him to take
stronger measures to provide leadership and
coordination in affirmatively furthering fair housing
in Federal programs.
Third, I ask the heads of departments and agencies,
including the Federal banking agencies, to cooperate
with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in
identifying ways to structure agency programs and
activities to affirmatively further fair housing and to
promptly negotiate memoranda of understanding with him
to accomplish that goal.
Further, I direct the Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development to review all of HUD's programs to assure
that they truly provide equal opportunity and promote
economic self-sufficiency for those who are
beneficiaries and recipients of those programs.
I also direct the Secretary to review HUD's programs to
assure that they contain the maximum incentives to
affirmatively further fair housing and to eliminate
barriers to free choice where they continue to exist.
This review shall include Federally assisted housing,
Federally insured housing and other housing and housing
related programs, including those of the Government
National Mortgage Association and the Federal Housing
Administration.
Today, I am establishing a new Cabinet-level
organization to focus the cooperative efforts of all
agencies on fair housing. The President's Fair Housing
Council will be chaired by the Secretary of Housing and
Urban Development and will consist of the Secretary of
Health and Human Services, the Secretary of
Transportation, the Secretary of Education, the
Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Defense, the
Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Veterans
Affairs, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney
General, the Secretary of the Interior, the Chair of
the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency,
the Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, and
the Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
The President's Fair Housing Council shall review the
design and delivery of Federal programs and activities
to ensure that they support a coordinated strategy to
affirmatively further fair housing. The Council shall
propose revisions to existing programs or activities,
develop pilot programs and activities, and propose new
programs and activities to achieve its goals.
I direct the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
and the President's Fair Housing Council to develop a
pilot program to be implemented in selected
metropolitan areas. This initiative will promote fair
housing choice by helping inner-city families to move
to suburban neighborhoods and by making the central
city more attractive to those who have left it. I
direct the members of the Council to undertake a
demonstration program that will reinvent the way
assisted housing is offered to applicants, will break
down jurisdictional barriers in housing opportunities,
and will promote the use of subsidies that diminish
residential segregation, and will combine these
initiatives with refined educational incentives aimed
at improving the effectiveness of inner-city schools. I
am directing that transportation alternatives be
considered along with targeted social service and job
training programs as part of the support necessary to
create a one-stop, metropolitan area-wide fair housing
opportunity pilot program that will effectively offer
Federally assisted housing, Federally insured housing,
and private market housing within a metropolitan area
to all residents of the area. The pilot program should
call upon realtors, mortgage lenders, housing
providers, and local governments, among others, to
assist in expanding housing choices.
To address the findings of recent studies, I hereby
direct the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
and the Attorney General and, where appropriate, the
heads of the Federal banking agencies to exercise
national leadership to end discrimination in mortgage
lending, the secondary mortgage marketing, and property
insurance practices. The Secretary is directed to issue
regulations to define discriminatory practices in these
areas and the Secretary and the Attorney General are
directed to aggressively enforce the laws prohibiting
these practices.
In each of these areas, I direct the Secretary of
Housing and Urban Development to take the lead with the
other Federal agencies in working to gain the voluntary
cooperation, participation, and expertise of all of
those in private industry, the States and localities
who can assist in achieving the Nation's fair housing
goals.
The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is
authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in
the Federal Register.
(Presidential Sig.)>
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, January 17, 1994.
[FR Doc. 94-4136
Filed 2-18-94; 10:53 am]
Billing code 4210-01-M
Editorial note: For the text of Executive Order 12892,
``Leadership and Coordination of Fair Housing in
Federal Programs: Affirmatively Furthering Fair
Housing,'' see issue Jan. 20, p. 2939 of the Federal
Register. See also the Weekly Compilation of
Presidential Documents (vol. 30, p. 110).
