    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 3 (Monday, January 24, 1994)]
    [Pages 114-116]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Memorandum on Fair Housing

    January 17, 1994

    Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

    Subject: Federal Leadership of Fair Housing

        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 and 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

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    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

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    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 market, 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.
                                                William J. Clinton