[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