HUD Halts Enforcement of 2016 HUD Equal Access Rule
Newly appointed HUD Secretary, Scott Turner, recently directed HUD staff to immediately halt pending or future enforcement actions relating to HUD’s Equal Access to Housing Final Rule. This announcement follows President Trump’s Executive Order 14168 issued on January 20th directing each Federal agency and Federal employees to enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.
By way of background, on September 21, 2016, HUD published a final rule (the 2016 Final Rule) to ensure equal access to individuals in accordance with their gender identity. The 2016 Final Rule was built upon a prior rule published in February 2012 which also aimed to ensure that HUD’s housing programs would be open to eligible individuals regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, but concluded that further research was needed on how best to accommodate transgender and gender non-conforming people in the context of shared sleeping quarters or bathing facilities. The 2016 Final Rule required the recipients and subrecipients of funding from HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), as well as owners, operators, and managers of shelters, and other buildings and facilities and providers of services funded in whole or in part by any CPD program, to grant equal access to such facilities, in accordance with the individual’s gender identity.
