Apartment Trends Magazine May 2016 | Page 36

APARTMENT ADVOCATE NATIONAL APARTMENT ASSOCIATION Fed Officials Warn Against Blanket Criminal History Exclusions HUD issued fair housing guidance on April 4 that extends protections for individuals with criminal histories. This guidance builds on similar policies issued by HUD last year that only applied to public and federal-assisted housing. Most notably, the new guidance prohibits the use of arrest records to deny residency and denials based on convictions must consider the nature and severity of the incident. Overall, the guidance seeks to end blanket exclusions of prospective residents based on criminal history in favor of a more individualized approach that is more narrowly tailored to achieve property safety and security goals. Importantly, while those with criminal histories are not a protected class under the Fair Hous- 34 | TRENDS • MAY 2016 ing Act (FHA), HUD has crafted the policy using disparate impact theory. Disparate impact allows fair housing complaints to proceed where actions have a discriminatory result even if there was no intent to discriminate. NAA/NMHC raised questions about the operational impacts of disparate impact theory in last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which identified this and other screening practices as a potential source for FHA liability. HUD Issues Final Multifamily Mortgage Insurance Rates HUD issued the final rules cutting the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) multifam- ily mortgage insurance rates on March 31 to spur the financing of affordable housing and energyefficient apartments. The decision is anticipated to result in the rehabilitation of an additional 12,000 units of affordable housing each year. FHA’s multifamily programs account for 9.2 percent of the total multifamily mortgage market. NAA/NMHC submitted comments to the proposed rules applauding the decision and also offered comments clarifying and adjusting certain aspects related to inclusionary zoning, fee caps and energy-efficiency. HUD adopted a number of our comments directly or they were incorporated along with similar comments from other submitted letters. www.aamdhq.org