If you are someone who believes that fair housing should be fair housing for everyone, now is the time to get involved and make your voice heard, writes Tommy Wehr, president of the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance.
While much of the country is preoccupied with the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the daily flood of news, something more significant is quietly happening for our industry and our community.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has finalized a rule repealing the Fair Housing Finance Plan, which provides fair lending oversight for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
This rollback eliminates a critical accountability framework designed to identify barriers to homeownership and proactively address discrimination impacting underserved communities, including LGBTQ+ people.
This decision did not happen in isolation.
CFPB Changes Affecting Fair Housing
On February 3, 11 U.S. senators asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to withdraw a proposed rule that would effectively eliminate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act’s (ECOA) disparate impact standard. If ultimately enacted, the changes would prohibit regulators from blocking lending practices that disproportionately harm historically marginalized groups, as long as lenders can claim neutral intent.
Taken together, these measures represent a dangerous setback for fair housing enforcement.
The senators’ letter to the CFPB highlights why differential impact protection is important.
Research consistently shows that ECOA-protected borrowers, including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ couples, face higher denial rates, worse loan terms, and higher costs than similarly situated borrowers.
From 2018 to 2023, Black mortgage applicants were more than twice1 more likely to be rejected than white mortgage applicants with a comparable profile. Latinx and Asian applicants had significantly higher rejection rates.
Single female applicants were nearly 30% more likely to be denied a mortgage than single male applicants. Research also shows that same-sex couples are more than 70% more likely to be rejected and are often charged higher interest rates and fees than opposite-sex couples with similar credit characteristics.
These differences are not theoretical. They are documented. And it is precisely because discrimination is often systemic, rather than overt, that it persists.
This is why FHFA’s elimination of the Fair Housing Financing Program is so concerning.
Why data matters for fair housing
When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac introduced these plans in 2024, the rationale was simple. You cannot fix what you refuse to measure.
At the time, Black and Hispanic borrowers received only 3.3% and 6.8% of loans, respectively, according to Freddie Mac data. The plan was designed to identify barriers, improve outcomes and ensure government-backed businesses are held accountable for progress, not promises.
“If we don’t confront this issue, we won’t make progress,” James Wiley, FHFA’s associate director of fair lending, said at the time.
Today, that philosophy has been abandoned.
Although the Fair Housing Act technically remains in effect, LGBTQ+ people remain not explicitly protected under federal law because sexual orientation and gender identity are not listed as protected classes. Removing active monitoring, transparency and planning requirements means discrimination is more likely to go unchecked and harder to prove after harm has occurred.
If GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprises) no longer have to assess how discrimination and structural barriers impact underserved Americans, how exactly can they close the homeownership gap? How do we expand access for LGBTQ+ families who already face high rates of denial, lack of protection, and lack of access to relief?
it’s not.
If we don’t speak up.
That’s why the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance has launched an advocacy campaign calling on U.S. senators and members of Congress to oppose the repeal of the Fair Housing Financing Program and defend disparate impact protections under ECOA.
If you’re an LGBTQ+ real estate professional, a realtor parent of an LGBTQ+ child (we believe there are over 60,000), an ally, or just someone who believes that fair housing should be fair housing for everyone, we need your voice now.
Click here to access detailed instructions and contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives to tell them that this rollback is wrong.
It is precisely silence that makes these changes possible.
Progress depends on participation.
Tommy Wehr is the 2026 National President of the LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance.
