Yesterday, Plaintiffs filed a brief in Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center v. HUD, a case alleging discrimination in the “Road home” program – the single largest housing recovery program in U.S. history.
The brief addresses two appeals pending in the DC Circuit and raises two key arguments:
First, we ask the court of appeals to keep in place an injunction that prohibits Louisiana from using the pre-storm “market value” of an applicant’s home to calculate any future Road Home grants. The lower court found that the use of this formula likely had a discriminatory impact on African-American homeowners, which resulted in them receiving insufficient funds to rebuild their homes.
In addition, we argue that the lower court improperly denied our request for an injunction that would protect surplus funds in the Road Home program. We have asked that these funds be used to help our clients, many of whom either depleted their life savings to rebuild or still need assistance to complete repairs and return home.
