On Tuesday, July 29, 2025, a federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to provide a detailed plan for distributing fair housing program grants for FY 2024. The order stems from a class action lawsuit filed by the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) and the Tennessee Fair Housing Council (TFHC) on June 24, 2025, alleging that HUD halted the release of new grant awards and froze the second and third years of existing multi-year grants.
The Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), created by the Congress in 1992, funds the local organizations that investigate housing discrimination and educate real estate professionals and consumers about civil rights laws. When funding is available, HUD publishes Notices of Funding Availability (NOFOs). Last September, HUD published NOFOs to fund new Private Enforcement Initiatives (PEIs) and develop education and outreach programs targeted to consumers (FY 2024 NOFOs).
NFHA alleges that it applied for new FHIP awards under the FY 2024 NOFOs. NFHA also claims that it has an active three-year PEI grant and that a HUD grant officer told NFHA that HUD could not move forward with the procedures to begin the second year of the grant. Without the award, NFHA says it could lose up to half a million dollars per year of its fair housing enforcement budget. TFHC alleges that it applied for a new PEI grant through the FY 2024 PEI NOFO and that HUD’s refusal to grant new awards has caused it to drastically reduce staff operations and halt its fair housing testing work.
In response to the motion for a temporary restraining order, which NFHA and TFHC filed on July 7, 2025, Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia ordered HUD to provide a detailed plan regarding how it intends to meet its statutory obligations for new grants for FY 2024 by August 4, 2025, and file status reports every seven days thereafter detailing its progress. For the multiyear grants, Judge Sooknanan ordered HUD to submit a status report by August 1, 2025, detailing its progress toward funding these grants.
