WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The HUD plan will target racially divided cities such as Chicago and Baltimore that civil-rights activists have long demanded should be desegregated, The Washington Post reported.
“This is the most serious effort that HUD has ever undertaken to do that,” HUD Secretary Julian Castro was quoted by The Washington Post as saying on Wednesday.
“I believe that it’s historic.”
According to reports, the HUD’s new desegregation plan will require US cities to “scrutinize their housing patterns for racial bias” and publically report the results every three to five years.
While local communities will also be expected to set goals, which they will monitor overtime, the plan will outline how the neighborhoods can continue to reduce segregation.
HUD’s sweeping desegregation plan comes just weeks after the US Supreme Court upheld the right under the 1968 Fair Housing Act to challenge practices that have a negative impact on minority groups, even if there is no proof of intentional discrimination by government agencies or businesses.
The Fair Housing Act, approved one week after the assassination of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., aims to protect real estate buyers and tenants from discrimination based on race, sex, religion or national origin.
