Restoring Fair Housing Protections Eliminated by Trump Act of 2025
Restoring Fair Housing Protections Eliminated by Trump Act of 2025 (S. 1621) is a Senate bill introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren that seeks to reverse several 2020s-era changes to HUD and the Fair Housing Act enforcement. The bill reaffirms HUD’s mission to create inclusive, sustainable, affordable housing and directs HUD to repeal a March 3, 2025 interim final rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH), and to define AFFH in a way that requires meaningful actions to overcome segregation and address disparities. It also expands HUD’s oversight and transparency by requiring a public complaints database and a review of how digital platforms and AI relate to housing discrimination, and it tightens the scope of what counts as covered housing under the Fair Housing Act. The overall aim is to strengthen fair housing protections, restore enforcement mechanisms, and improve accountability and data availability. The bill lays out specific implementation steps and reporting requirements, with a short timeline (e.g., actions to repeal and redefine AFFH within 90 days of enactment and a Congress-wide review of AI/digital-platform issues within 180 days). It also creates a detailed, publicly accessible database on fair housing complaints, including breakdowns by protected class, homelessness, tenant status, state-level data, retaliation, and case resolutions. A broad set of HUD-assisted housing programs is identified as “covered housing” for purposes of the Act. Sponsor noted: Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the bill in May 2025; status is Introduced and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Key Points
- 1Reaffirms HUD’s explicit mission to create strong, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all, and to use housing policy to strengthen the economy, protect consumers, and reduce discrimination.
- 2Repeals the March 3, 2025 interim final rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing and replaces it with a rule defining AFFH to require meaningful, integrated actions that overcome segregation and disparities across all housing and urban development programs.
- 3Requires implementation within 90 days of enactment: repeal of the interim rule and issuance of a new AFFH rule that expands the duty to affirmatively further fair housing to all program activities related to housing and development.
- 4Establishes a process to review and report on the use of digital platforms and artificial intelligence in housing-related activities (advertising, tenant screening, underwriting, pricing, listings) and assesses how current law addresses discrimination in these digital contexts, with a Congress-facing analysis due within 180 days.
- 5Creates a publicly available, quarterly updating database of fair housing complaints that includes: totals and shares by protected class; Violence Against Women Act complaints; use-by-homelessness/tenancy status; state-by-state data; retaliation and eviction data; complaint statuses and remedies; and referrals to state/local agencies or the Attorney General.