# Fair Housing Initiatives Program The **Fair Housing Initiatives Program** (FHIP) is the federal grant program that funds private, nonprofit fair housing organizations to investigate and fight housing discrimination. Congress created it in Section 561 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1987 and expanded it in 1992. HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity runs it. It is the only federal grant program whose purpose is to support private groups in enforcing the [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]]. ## Why it matters Most housing discrimination is invisible to the person it happens to. A family told "that unit just rented" usually has no way of knowing whether it is true. FHIP pays for the groups that find out, most often by **testing**: sending matched pairs of applicants, alike except for race, disability or family status, to the same landlord or lender and comparing how they are treated. Those local groups, not the federal government, handle most of the country's discrimination complaints. The [[National Fair Housing Alliance]] says its members take about three of every four complaints filed each year, while HUD handles fewer than one in twenty. Cutting or redirecting FHIP money is therefore one of the most direct ways to weaken fair housing enforcement without changing the law. ## How the money is used FHIP has three main parts: - **Private Enforcement Initiative**: funds testing, investigation and enforcement by established fair housing groups. - **Education and Outreach Initiative**: funds public education on fair housing rights and responsibilities. - **Fair Housing Organizations Initiative**: helps build new or smaller fair housing organizations, especially those serving underserved groups. Normally the program makes more than 100 grants a year, each between about $75,000 and $425,000. ## The 2025–2026 funding fights - **February 27, 2025.** HUD terminated grants to dozens of fair housing groups with identical form letters citing [[DOGE]], putting about $30 million in congressionally approved funding at risk. - **Late March 2025.** After four member groups of the National Fair Housing Alliance sued on behalf of the affected organizations, Judge Richard G. Stearns of the federal court in Massachusetts ordered HUD to restore 78 grants, and HUD did. - **June 2025.** The alliance and the Tennessee Fair Housing Council sued over HUD's refusal to award the previous year's funds, and a court again ordered HUD to act. - **July 23, 2026.** The alliance and the Massachusetts Fair Housing Center challenged HUD's new funding notices for 2025 and 2026. HUD planned to put $46 million of a $56 million appropriation into just five grants, including $25 million to a single law school, and added conditions the plaintiffs said would effectively shut out local nonprofit groups. - **August 26, 2026.** Judge Myong J. Joun blocked the 2025 funding notices, ordered HUD to distribute the money using the previous year's structure, and called HUD's stated reasons "pretextual." The challenge to the 2026 notices is still pending. ## Connections - [[Fair Housing Act of 1968]]: the law these groups enforce. - [[Department of Housing and Urban Development]]: the agency that runs the program. - [[Disparate Impact]] and [[Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing]]: the other fronts of the 2025–2026 fair housing rollback.