A Community Member Explains HUD’s AFFH to Public Officials

Lynn Teger has done an exhaustive amount of research on HUD’s AFFH and the effects certain grants can have on Rockland County, NY. The research and information provided by Lynn can be of immense value in explaining AFFH in your own community.

In August 2016, Rockland County Planning Commission asked Lynn Teger to speak about HUD’s new AFFH rule.

Direct Link

Effectively, these fair housing rules attach strings to federal grants to local communities. Beyond merely guaranteeing that the funds are used for their intended purpose, the requirements open up small communities to lawsuits or loss of local control if federal bureaucrats decide newly approved developments do not meet diversity goals.

A few localities have opted out of federal funding to avoid the requirements imposed by the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing program. For suburban decision makers who don’t opt out, the equilibrium result is clear: Err on the side of caution.

Read more…
http://dailysignal.com/2016/10/05/obama-fair-housing-rules-open-door-to-unintended-consequences/

You cannot make this up folks, read to the bottom to be outraged.

Another community has rejected HUD’s AFFH once they discovered their increased legal liabilities. It was good to see residents and public officials working together for the interests of the community.

Also, you will not believe what your realtor CANNOT say in our second article, “Realtors’ Dilemma – When Civil Rights Squash Civil Rights!”

Yet Again! PhD and Public Officials Stop Another HUD AFFH

Wayne Township, NJ is the latest community to reject future HUD grants. Their experience provides a lesson for other jurisdictions.

Wayne Township has been a direct recipient of HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds for several years and planned to renew their application for the future. Grant applicants routinely agree to affirmatively further fair housing as a precondition to receiving the funds.

Until citizens spoke up, Wayne officials were unaware that in July 2015, HUD altered both the requirements necessary to affirmatively further fair housing, and their enforcement techniques against violators.

Township officials did not change their mind because alarmist citizens shouted down their plans. Quite the opposite. Well-informed residents of Wayne presented the council with researched facts, supporting data and examples of other jurisdictions that were forced to comply with HUD against community wishes.

After listening to their constituents, the council members conducted their own research. During the lengthy process, a bond of trust developed between officials and community members.

It was in this environment that the council members ultimately rejected future grant money as too risky.

Local resident, Dr. Al Frech, spearheaded much of the joint work and met frequently with the council members over several months. On September 7, 2016, the Mayor officially rejected any future HUD funds involving AFFH. You can see their comments in the video below.

(Direct Link To Video)

(Go to the following time marks for remarks related to AFFH)

(32:59-34:19 Mayor speaks on CDBG)
(34:36-36:50 Council member omments re: Mayor’s remarks)
(44:17-49:29 Dr. Frech )
(49:48 Council President Comment.)

Two important questions –

Two important questions emerged during the learning process. Why would HUD’s AFFH require massive community re-engineering to forward efforts like economic integration and upward mobility, when the programs are often experimental or based on mixed prior results and inconclusive studies? Why has HUD exceeded their authority under the Fair Housing Act, regardless of good intentions?

The answer lies in the word “regionalism.”

HUD, DOT and the EPA have been instrumental in fostering regionalism since 1993. In 2009, the three agencies formed a “Partnership for Sustainable Development” for the express purpose of merging their unique authorities toward the common goal of advancing sustainable regions. In June 2016, the agency also teamed with the Department of Education to promote regional Equity Assistance Centers to advance income integration in elementary and secondary classrooms.

These agencies are working feverishly to infill suburbs by transplanting urban families into the outlying communities, which then merge with nearby counties and towns into larger regions managed by unelected councils.

Even HUD’s new Assessment of Fair Housing, the document applicants must complete to receive AFFH related grants, requires grant recipients to align their local plan with a regional plan.

From a planning standpoint, this model eliminates issues of local zoning and land use laws, local public officials’ resistance and the not in my backyard (NIMBY) syndrome.

Many public officials are not aware that this process also strips away local rule and undermines voter preferences.

I urge you to listen to Dr. Frech at 44:17 to 49:29 time segments on the accompanying video as he responds to these issues.

As Wayne Township Councilman Jonathan Ettman said, “It shows you how important it is for the public to take part in these meetings.” Their participation “led to additional research and investigation” on our part.”

Wayne Township is a fine example of what happens when community members work closely with their public officials to keep everyone informed.

Realtors’ Dilemma. When Civil Rights Squash… Civil Rights!

Most people look to their realtor to provide helpful advice when buying and selling homes. But, broad interpretations of civil rights laws often prohibit your realtor from stating the information you need most to make a good decision.

A simple remark like “I think you will find this a safe neighborhood with desirable schools”, can land your realtor in legal hot water for a civil rights violation.

According to HUD, the 1968 Fair Housing Act law prevents discrimination against people or groups based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability or family status. But, HUD’s increasingly liberal interpretation of what constitutes discrimination crushes rights was well as protects them.

According to John Relman, partner with the Washington DC legal firm of Relman Dane and Colfax, in a 2015 Time interview, breaking civil rights law can result in payments to the victim for housing and damages, to the government for civil penalties and to the attorney for fees and costs.

No brokerage firm wants to face those risks.

A realtor’s advertisement saying, “No pets or kids,” can discriminate against families. A realtor using a church as a directional point as in, “To find the house, make a left two blocks past the church,” can be deemed coded religious discrimination.

Here is a list of prohibited phrases recently released by MLS:

Safe neighborhoods
Highly desirable school district
Great for extended family
Mother/Daughter
Close to a house of worship
Perfect for empty nesters
If your realtor is less than helpful, she may have little legal choice.

H/T John Anthony
Sustainable Freedom Lab

“HUD is the ‘gold’ standard of dangerously unchecked bureaucracies. “Dangerously” because the agency’s zealous moves already threaten property owners’ choices and undermine the authority of local public officials.

Now HUD wants to move that control into the classroom.

In a joint meeting with members from the Departments of Education and Transportation, HUD presented their plan to embed socio-economic diversity in America’s schoolrooms.

Based on controversial reports, often using HUD provided data; the agency concludes that people living in wealthier areas have a better chance for success. Therefore, they reason, to create upward mobility for voucher recipients, HUD must relocate them into affluent neighborhoods and schools.

The agency is pulling three federal departments together to micro-manage the racial, ethnic and economic mix of students in America’s elementary and secondary classrooms.”

Read more…
http://sustainablefreedomlab.org/2016/08/22/hud-moves-to-dictate-classroom-diversity/

IN case you missed it, Obama, with the help of the usual criminals like John Kerry et al, handed over our sovereign nation to the UN in the form of signing on to the Paris Climate Agreement. Obama says this will make it easier for OTHER COUNTRIES (let that sink in for a minute) to police us. He said as much in the live speech, but many of his words are NOT contained in the official transcripts.

Obama is treasonously touting the UN as a world governing body, when it is NOT.

Read more…
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-calls-paris-agreement-a-turning-point-for-our-planet/

Download and redistribute this PDF booklet to explain Agenda 21, how the use of the word ‘sustainable’ came about and why the end game is Marxism.

Sustainable Development: The Transformation of America by Tom DeWeese

Nobody that lives in or near any city can stay ignorant on what will be drafted by the UN in Quito, Ecuador next month. This will be bigger than 2030 Agenda. ⁃ TN Editor

For the past four months, activists, lobbyists, local governments and national governments have been jockeying for position around a major new U. N. strategy on sustainable urbanization.

After four iterations, the final draft of that document, known as the New Urban Agenda, was released Tuesday, on the heels of intensive, 38-hour negotiations that took place last weekend at U. N. Headquarters. Many now expect this draft to be the one that gets adopted next month when heads of state and government gather at the Habitat III summit in Quito, Ecuador.

The repercussions of this 23-page document will be felt for the next two decades, and the ramifications of any truly transformational aspects may take years to be understood. But in the immediate aftermath of the exhausting conclusion to the Habitat III talks, Citiscope notes five takeaways from the storylines it has been following for the past several months.

This UN mission is the driving force behind all the “sustainability” and planning groups, which have infected our local government.

Read more, What’s Actually In The Final Draft Of UN’s ‘New Urban Agenda’

“Thank you for the opportunity to set out my views on climate change. As I have stated publicly on many occasions, there is no definitive scientific proof, through real-world observation, that carbon dioxide is responsible for any of the slight warming of the global climate that has occurred during the past 300 years, since the peak of the Little Ice Age. If there were such a proof through testing and replication it would have been written down for all to see.

The contention that human emissions are now the dominant influence on climate is simply a hypothesis, rather than a universally accepted scientific theory. It is therefore correct, indeed verging on compulsory in the scientific tradition, to be skeptical of those who express certainty that “the science is settled” and “the debate is over”.”

Read more…

If you are a frequent visitor to this website/blog, you know that Agenda 21, and now Agenda 2030 are international agendas that have trickled down to local government and threaten our rights. While we are just a bunch of voting citizens who have banded together to spread awareness and cultivate activism, we do not ourselves take donations of any kind.

However, there are two giants in this cause who have been working on this issue for a long time and provide many pieces of information and other resources that we can use. They are John Anthony, of Sustainable Freedom Lab, and Tom DeWeese of American Policy Center. If you are considering donating to any cause, these would be good ones to choose. The good thing is, you can get something for your donation such as John’s DVD which can be shown to your groups to educate them on the issues.

From Tom DeWeese:

Hello friend of APC,

As you know for more than 24 years APC has led the fight to expose and stop the UN’s Agenda 21 and its Sustainable Development policy. For most of those years it has been a very lonely battle, with few victories to show for my efforts.

Elected officials have ignored the warnings. Property rights have been destroyed.

People have less and less access to their government as non-elected boards and regional government rules the day.

Powerful special interests and planners operate in the dark of backrooms.

The size and power of government have soared. And certainly our nation has been transformed.

The situation became even more dangerous last year as the United Nations rebooted Agenda 21 into Agenda 2030, determined to finish the job.

Barack Obama is leading the way, using the EPA as his main weapon, killing industry, destroying jobs, grabbing power over every aspect of our lives.

The Agenda 21/2030 forces are now convinced that we cannot stop them. During those “wilderness years,” when few were listening to my warnings, I refused to give in.

I traveled the nation, speaking out. In just one year I gave over 100 talks in 35 states. And that pace continues. I hit the air waves on radio. I appeared several times on national programs like Fox News.

As I spoke out a wave of activism followed in my wake. A firestorm broke out in Spokane, Washington. A teacher in Ohio used my materials to create a Stop Agenda 21 class. The state of Alabama passed an anti-Agenda 21 law. And the Republican National Committee added an anti-Agenda 21 plank to its platform.

I was instrumental in bringing the Tea party into the Agenda 21 fight. That helped bring in activists from all fifty states.

More importantly I made it my mission to create tools for activists to teach them how to fight back right in their own communities. APC’s “Stop Agenda 21 Action Kit” was, and is, the most comprehensive source of information ever produced on Agenda 21.

Last year I produced a series of ten Internet Webinars for activists. These featured some of the nation’s leading Agenda 21 experts.

And just a couple of months ago I hosted a special national teleconference call specifically for elected officials to bring them the latest threats and tactics.

These efforts forced pro-Agenda 21 groups to respond and attack me as a danger to their cause.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has produced at least four reports targeting me. They call me a domestic terrorist!

The American Planning Association, the largest Agenda 21 planning group in the nation, was forced to create a “boot camp” to retrain their people to deal with local citizen activists that I taught to oppose them.

One of our targets has been the UN-sanctioned organization called the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). This organization helped write Agenda 21 and then set off to enforce its policy in every community in the world. By 2011 more than 600 American cities were paying dues to ICLEI.

To date, APC’s efforts have resulted in getting over 150 cities to stop paying dues to ICLEI. That is an absolutely astounding fact.

The head of ICLEI USA expressed his fear of my efforts. He said, “We are terrified of them… we can’t get new cities to join us. They have made us political poison.” That statement alone is a huge victory!

So why am I writing to you today, telling you all of these details?

Let me be blunt.

For years, many have considered the American Policy Center to be a nice, reliable little organization that does some good work.

Our supporters have been faithful to sustain us at that level. I have been grateful for that support and have done my best to carry out our programs with the limited funds we receive.

But, today, because I have stuck to this issue and never wavered, opposition to Agenda 21 is fast becoming the most important issue in the fight to restore America’s freedoms.

And the American Policy Center is THE recognized leader in this fight.

I am buried under calls and letters from people asking for help in their community. Now even elected officials are calling for help. That’s huge!

The amount of people visiting the APC Internet web site has doubled in just the past few months as desperate people are learning about us and downloading our Sustainable Development special reports and articles.

In short, the American Policy Center has become a big deal. We have become a national leader. And we are facing an opportunity that I have worked towards for over twenty years. Victory over Agenda 21.

But… as I face this avalanche of new found responsibility, I am struggling to meet it armed with the funding base of a much smaller organization.

Simply put, if I can’t raise more money to fund our new responsibilities, APC will have to stand on the sidelines and watch as this opportunity for victory is lost.

I need to produce and distribute more materials. A copy of my manual on Sustainable Development should be sent to every single county commissioner and city councilman in the nation. Every mayor and every state legislator should hear from us.

That’s just what our opposition has done. And that is why they’ve been winning over the past several years.

But there is no way APC can do that under our current funding. I can’t even consider it, even though I am getting calls daily from activists pleading that I do so. I have the materials – just not the funds to get them out to the public.

I have worked my whole life to reach this moment. I can see victory just over the next hill. But I don’t have the funds to get there.

As you know, APC receives no grants from large foundations or corporations and I would never accept grants from the government. So I have only those individuals who will voluntarily contribute to my efforts.

Will you please make a donation today for at least $25? Click here to contribute now.

But, whatever you and I do together – we must do it now. We cannot wait. People across the nation are determined and ready to fight now.

We can’t miss this opportunity to strike a death blow against such a dire threat to our freedom.

I have never been more excited about our ability to win. We have ICLEI on the run. Elected officials are finally asking for our help.

But I must have the funds to fight it.

This is our issue. We are the ones to fight it. This is our time.

Please stand with me now.

Yours in Freedom,

Tom DeWeese
President