#Trump defends scrapping Obama-era fair housing laws to protect suburbs

President Trump is defending his administration’s recent decision to rescind an Obama-Biden administration rule on fair housing, arguing that the move would protect property values in the suburbs.

In a set of tweets Wednesday, the commander-in-chief stood by the move to get rid of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing provision of the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

The provision was updated by the prior administration in 2015 to allow the federal government to withhold federal funding if dissatisfied with a state or local government’s work to document and prevent racial biases in housing.

“I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood,” Trump wrote in the first message.

“Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!” he continued.

The tweets come less than one week after Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson announced the administration’s decision to repeal the rule, arguing that it was “complicated, costly, and ineffective.”

“After reviewing thousands of comments on the proposed changes to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation, we found it to be unworkable and ultimately a waste of time for localities to comply with, too often resulting in funds being steered away from communities that need them most.

“Instead, the Trump Administration has established programs like Opportunity Zones that are driving billions of dollars of capital into underserved communities where affordable housing exists, but opportunity does not,” Carson said in a statement revealing the move.

The administration is replacing the AFFH with the Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice rule, which Carson said will offer state and local government the benefit of the doubt to maintain fair housing practices.

“This brand-new rule…defines fair housing broadly to mean housing that, among other attributes, is affordable, safe, decent, free of unlawful discrimination, and accessible under civil rights laws. It then defines ‘affirmatively furthering fair housing’ to mean any action rationally related to promoting any of the above attributes of fair housing,” the HUD secretary’s statement read.

The president has referenced “the suburbs” repeatedly throughout the past week, arguing that they are in need of protection in some form.

Last Thursday, he linked to a Post op-ed critiquing Biden’s plan for housing and tweeted, “The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article. Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!”

Speaking at a telerally on Tuesday, Trump warned event attendees that a President Biden would “abolish” the suburbs.

“They want to abolish — and really hurt — the suburbs, because under their plan…they don’t mind if low income housing is built in…a beautiful suburb,” the president warned.

“This has been going on for years. Obama made it much worse. And now they want Cory Booker to run that program — Cory Booker of New Jersey — to run that program and make it many times worse than it is right now,” he continued.