NO EXPERIENCE? NO PROBLEM! Ben Carson, Trump's HUD Pick, Once Called Fair Housing Communism
The famed retired neurosurgeon turned Trump adviser has little direct experience with fair housing issues, but that didn’t stop him from once likening the discrimination laws to communism.
GIDEON RESNICK
11.28.16 1:05 AM ET
Ben Carson spent the weekend thinking about his offer to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Donald Trump’s administration, and if he accepts, the retired neurosurgeon could complicate progress made on anti-housing discrimination laws during the Obama administration.
While it is somewhat unclear as to what Carson’s goals would be in the position, he has criticized a recent HUD fair housing rule, which requires local communities to assess patterns of income and racial discrimination in housing. He has referred to the rule, known as “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” as a “mandated social-engineering scheme,” and in one instance said it was indicative of policy in a “communist” country.
The rule was meant to correct a stipulation of the 1968 Fair Housing Act which both banned discrimination in the housing market and required local communities to actively pursue fair housing. Should Carson be confirmed for the position, he would have authority over the way in which the new HUD provision is rolled out. And it would appear, that he’s no fan of it.
Carson argued in a 2015 column for The Washington Times “It is true that the Fair Housing Act and other laws have greatly reduced explicit discrimination in housing, but significant disparities in housing availability and quality persist,” he wrote. “To address them, The Obama administration’s new agency rules rely on a tortured reading of the Fair Housing laws to empower the Department of Housing and Urban Development to “affirmatively promote” fair housing, even in the absence of explicit discrimination.”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/28/ben-carson-trump-s-hud-pick-once-called-fair-housing-communism.html
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