HUD launches federal investigation into Boston’s alleged DEI housing discrimination

The U.S. Division of Housing and City Growth has launched an investigation into Boston’s alleged housing discrimination, saying the town makes use of DEI practices to favor Black and Latino residents in violation of federal civil rights protections.

Craig Trainor, assistant secretary of HUD’s Workplace of Truthful Housing and Equal Alternative, notified Boston Mayor Michelle Wu of the investigation into the town’s range, fairness and inclusion housing practices — which the Trump administration believes to be a violation of the Truthful Housing Act, a federal anti-discrimination regulation — in a Thursday letter.

“We believe the City of Boston has engaged in a social engineering project that intentionally advances discriminatory housing policies driven by an ideological commitment to DEI rather than merit or need,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner mentioned in a press release. “HUD is dedicated to defending each American’s civil rights and can completely examine the town’s acknowledged purpose of ‘integrating racial equity into every layer of city government.’

“This warped mentality will be fully exposed, and Boston will come into full compliance with federal anti-discrimination law,” Turner added.

Trainor’s letter to the mayor highlights a number of examples of what HUD known as the town’s “racially discriminatory housing plan.”

“The city has been very public about its intention to discriminate on the basis of race, while essentially claiming that social justice and racial equity concerns purify its intentions,” Trainor wrote.

He mentions that the town’s honest housing evaluation guarantees to “target homebuyer outreach” at Black and Latinx households. The evaluation tasked the mayor’s workplace of housing, the Boston Planning Division and Boston Housing Authority with accumulating racial and ethnic knowledge “to evaluate their work through a racial and social lens,” per Trainor’s letter.

Trainor additionally hits on the town’s racial and sex-based quotas. He cited the Boston Housing Technique 2025, which introduced that “at least 65% of opportunities to buy homes through City of Boston initiatives” ought to go to BIPOC households, a time period that refers to Black, indigenous, or individuals of colour, his letter states.

HUD’s interpretation of the town’s coverage is that monetary housing help is not only for all low-income individuals, however relatively, particularly focused to individuals of colour.

“No person or entity — the City of Boston included — is permitted to violate civil rights protections in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI),” Trainor wrote. “The Trump administration is devoted to defending the civil rights of all Individuals.

“At your office’s direction, however, city officials have set out to smuggle ‘racial equity into every layer of city government.’ To this dubious end, the City of Boston has developed and intends to implement discriminatory housing practices in violation of the Fair Housing Act.”