President Donald Trump’s administration has begun terminating grants to organizations that enforce the Fair Housing Act by taking complaints, investigating and litigating housing discrimination cases for Americans across the country, according to a document and information obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.
The grants are disbursed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to private nonprofits, which act as the frontline enforcement of the federal anti-discrimination law. They educate communities on their rights, test whether a landlord is racially discriminating, investigate complaints, resolve disputes and can fund legal counsel.
Of some 34,000 fair housing complaints lodged in the U.S. in 2023, these private nonprofits processed 75%, according to a report from the National Fair Housing Alliance. The rest were fielded by state and local governments, with HUD and the U.S. Department of Justice working on less than 6% combined.
