§ 903.15 What is the relationship of the public housing agency plans to the Consolidated Plan and a PHA's Fair Housing Requirements? ( a ) The PHA must ensure that the Annual Plan is consistent with any applicable Consolidated Plan for the jurisdiction in which the PHA is located. ( 1 ) The PHA must submit a certification by the appropriate State or local officials that the Annual Plan is consistent with the Consolidated Plan and include a description of the manner in which the applicable plan contents are consistent with the Consolidated Plans.
( 2 ) For State agencies that are PHAs, the applicable Consolidated Plan is the State Consolidated Plan.
( b ) A PHA may request to change its fiscal year to better coordinate its planning with the planning done under the Consolidated Plan process, by the State or local officials, as applicable.
( c ) *Fair housing requirements.* A PHA is obligated to affirmatively further fair housing in its operating policies, procedures, and capital activities. All admission and occupancy policies for public housing and Section 8 tenant-based and project-based housing programs must comply with Fair Housing Act requirements and other civil rights laws and regulations and with a PHA's plans to affirmatively further fair housing. The PHA may not impose any specific income or racial quotas for any development or developments. ( 1 ) *Nondiscrimination.* A PHA must carry out its PHA Plan in conformity with the nondiscrimination requirements in Federal civil rights laws, including title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Fair Housing Act. A PHA may not assign housing to persons in a particular section of a community or to a development or building based on race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin for purposes of segregating populations.
( 2 ) *Affirmatively furthering fair housing.* A PHA's policies should be designed to reduce the concentration of tenants and other assisted persons by race, national origin, and disability. Any affirmative steps or incentives a PHA plans to take must be stated in the admission policy. ( i ) HUD regulations provide that PHAs must take steps to affirmatively further fair housing. PHA policies should include affirmative steps to overcome the effects of discrimination and the effects of conditions that resulted in limiting participation of persons because of their race, national origin, disability, or other protected class.
( ii ) Such affirmative steps may include, but are not limited to, marketing efforts, use of nondiscriminatory tenant selection and assignment policies that lead to desegregation, additional applicant consultation and information, provision of additional supportive services and amenities to a development (such as supportive services that enable an individual with a disability to transfer from an institutional setting into the community), and engagement in ongoing coordination with state and local disability agencies to provide additional community-based housing opportunities for individuals with disabilities and to connect such individuals with supportive services to enable an individual with a disability to transfer from an institutional setting into the community.
( 3 ) *Validity of certification.* ( i ) A PHA's certification under § 903.7(o) will be subject to challenge by HUD where it appears that a PHA: ( A ) Fails to meet the affirmatively furthering fair housing requirements at 24 CFR 5.150 through 5.152
( B ) Takes action that is materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing; or
( C ) Fails to meet the fair housing, civil rights, and affirmatively furthering fair housing requirements in 24 CFR 903.7(o).
( ii ) If HUD challenges the validity of a PHA's certification, HUD will do so in writing specifying the deficiencies, and will give the PHA an opportunity to respond to the particular challenge in writing. In responding to the specified deficiencies, a PHA must establish, as applicable, that it has complied with fair housing and civil rights laws and regulations, or has remedied violations of fair housing and civil rights laws and regulations, and has adopted policies and undertaken actions to affirmatively further fair housing, including, but not limited to, providing a full range of housing opportunities to applicants and tenants in a nondiscriminatory manner. In responding to the PHA, HUD may accept the PHA's explanation and withdraw the challenge, undertake further investigation, or pursue other remedies available under law. HUD will seek to obtain voluntary corrective action consistent with the specified deficiencies. In determining whether a PHA has complied with its certification, HUD will review the PHA's circumstances relevant to the specified deficiencies, including characteristics of the population served by the PHA; characteristics of the PHA's existing housing stock; and decisions, plans, goals, priorities, strategies, and actions of the PHA, including those designed to affirmatively further fair housing.
[85 FR 47911, Aug. 7, 2020, as amended at 86 FR 30793, June 10, 2021; 89 FR 38293, May 7, 2024]