After several years of litigation, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently dismissed disparate impact claims filed against the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) in the fair housing case, The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. v. The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.
The Inclusive Communities Project (ICP) claims alleged that TDHCA’s procedures for allocating low-income housing tax credits had a disparate impact on racial minorities and thus violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA). Following the District Court’s initial ruling that ICP made a successful prima facie showing of disparate impact, the case was appealed to the Fifth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court. Even though the Supreme Court held that disparate impact claims were cognizable under the FHA, the case was remanded so ICP’s claims and TDHCA’s defenses could be reassessed in light of the standards in the Supreme Court verdict and new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regulations for evaluating disparate impact claims.
On August 26, 2016, the District Court held that ICP failed to make a prima facie showing of disparate impact under the current standard because its claims (i) did not identify any specific, facially neutral policy that caused the disparate impact, (ii) were in essence claims disparate treatment, and (iii) failed to demonstrate that TDHCA’s policies actually caused the statistical disparities asserted by ICP. For more information, see the Housing Group’s e-alert on this verdict.