Forget race. It”™s about not meeting the letter of the law.
Semantics and hyperbole aside, the predicament Westchester County finds itself in as the result of a federal anti-discrimination lawsuit is due to inadequately following and addressing the guidelines of the HUD Fair Housing Guide.
As a result of the agreement, Westchester must now have in place ”“ either by building or buying ”“ 750 units of affordable housing in neighborhoods with an African-American population of less than 3 percent and a Hispanic population of less the 7 percent. And, oh yes, it must all be accomplished by 2016. Social engineering by the federal government has not been a historically positive avenue to knock down racial walls.
The cost to the county and its taxpayers is still being crunched. The county has to pay $30 million to the federal government to settle the False Claims Act allegations. In addition the county has to pay $7.5 million to the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York, which brought the lawsuit. Also, $2.5 million in legal fees for the center”™s counsel, another $1 million for the federal government”™s expenses and untold fees for the county”™s defense team needs to be added in. The county also has to add $30 million to its capital budget to help create the units. The interest cost for borrowing the money is also not included.
How much businesses and other taxpayers will be on the hook for is unknown.
The only clear winners in this will be the building and trades unions.
We wonder if the families who have lost their homes in Westchester due to foreclosure will be able to apply for this housing.
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The ruling by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote goes well beyond the borders of Westchester and New York as stated in no uncertain terms by HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims. “This settlement reflects an approach to equitable development in suburban areas that can serve as a model for building inclusive, diverse and sustainable communities across the country.”
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From 2000 on, Westchester had certified that it was in compliance with a requirement of the Housing and Community Development Act that it affirmatively further fair housing.
Judge Cote found otherwise.
In a Feb. 24 decision, Cote wrote:
“The county argues that the HUD Guide is not persuasive on the issue of what is required for an AI (analysis of impediments). It tries to recast the issues in this litigation as a quibble over whether the county was required to follow the specific tasks and format HUD lays out, which are not spelled out in the case law and statutory and regulatory framework. As already described, however, the county”™s AIs during the false claims period utterly failed to comply with the regulatory requirement that the county perform and maintain a record of its analysis of the impediments to fair housing choice in terms of race. This failure is only compounded by the county”™s failure to follow the guidance provided by HUD.”
According to the HUD Fair Housing Planning Guide, when a county or municipality builds or does a makeover of housing for low- and moderate-income families, “this action is not in and of itself sufficient to affirmatively further fair housing.”
Aye, and therein lies the rub.
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Westchester officials point to the 1,704 units of housing that it has built.
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“We have always been committed to fair and affordable housing, and believe we have lived up to HUD”™s guidelines,” County Executive Andy Spano said. “Never has HUD denied our funding and we have been identified for best management practices.”
However, the Bush Administration apparently had a lower set of standards than the Obama Administration when it came to doling out HUD dollars.
According to the February ruling, Westchester “admits that it did not undertake an analysis of whether the production of affordable housing between January 1, 1992 and April 1, 2006, had the effect of increasing or decreasing racial diversity in the neighborhood in which the housing was built.”
The legal papers point to a single member of the county”™s Planning Department as being the person responsible for the administration of the grants associated with the county”™s affordable housing program and Community Development Block Grant program.
It is hard to believe that this planner”™s grant applications were not scrutinized by legal counsel or at least a superior before being mailed down to Washington, D.C.
That aside, the county maintains it acted in good faith. The planner had testified that the Anti-Discrimination Center was told the county “sees discrimination in terms of income, rather than in terms of race,” adding the county”™s analysis of impediments “is seen through the lens of income and affordability, as opposed to race discrimination and segregation by race.”
So it came down to the letter of the law. The judge found: “While it is true that federal law does not require the county to find evidence of racial discrimination or segregation where none exists, federal law does require that to obtain the HUD funds at issue here, the county had to maintain records of its analysis of whether race created an impediment to fair housing. ”¦Without such a contemporaneous analysis and record, the certification that one existed was false.”
We have come a long way since the racially charged 1960s. Yes, there are still pockets of discrimination in this nation. But one”™s skin color is no longer the major skein in the fabric of America.
The county worker who sought the HUD application was right on a moral level but wrong on meeting the weight of the law.
What should be the gating factor for housing is one”™s income.
Choosing one”™s neighborhood should always remain with the individual and not the heavy-handed, costly and unwanted guidance of government.
