Why is there a need for this rule at this time?
The mandate for the rule existed in the original Fair Housing Act (1968). If you look at the language, HUD was charged with stamping out any illegal discrimination that it saw, and also with affirmatively taking steps to promote integration and access to opportunity. That's in the law that was written in the '60s, so the mandate is not new and the charge isn't new.
What IS new is that the existing regulations that were done many, many years ago weren't actually accomplishing the things we hoped they would. It wasn't getting communities to be reflective about how they were investing in their communities to make sure people were moving forward, it wasn't sparking the types of discussions and conversations that would get a deeper awareness of the challenges that still exist in communities, and it wasn't leading to creativity in finding solutions so that segments of the population weren't being left behind. Those were the things that really drove us to move forward.
It wasn't easy. This was a process and it's a regulation that cuts across a lot of different areas and philosophies, and trying to find articulation that makes sense to everyone and that's doable took a lot of effort.
Why do you think there is controversy or misinformation around this rule?
I think the controversy arises for a couple of reasons. One is purely political. The idea is that if you scare people to make the other side look like they're doing something reckless or dangerous, you gain political points. Much of the alarmist rhetoric has been really trying to scare people to suggest that the Obama Administration is trying to determine who your neighbors are going to be. The administration is not trying to do that. Those things, like this notion of social engineering you hear people talk about, are total mischaracterizations. It's going way beyond what is intended by this and what's likely to happen.