The proposed rule comes as the nation’s biggest cities are trying to cope with housing crises and as homelessness rates have increased, especially on the West Coast. Black homeownership rates have declined to levels not seen since the 1960s. The department has already proposed a rule that would raise the bar for proving housing discrimination. The public comment period for that rule closed last August, and it is still under consideration.

The Fair Housing Act requires that recipients of HUD funding “affirmatively further” fair housing and equal opportunity but leaves it to the secretary of housing and urban development to decide what that means.

The Obama administration defined furthering fair housing as addressing “significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws.”

The Trump administration would drastically pare that back to simply saying people should live “where they choose, within their means, without unlawful discrimination related to race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability.” No mention of segregation appears in the new definition.

The 2015 Obama rule required recipients of HUD funding to work with the agency to assess the state of fair housing in their community. The recipients were then required to create fair housing goals. The Obama administration estimated that the rule would cost local entities $25 million a year and HUD $9 million annually.

Housing advocates saw that as money well spent.

“After several years of considerable input from stakeholders across the spectrum, the Obama administration’s fair housing rule made the strongest effort in decades to reverse harmful patterns of segregation and discriminatory practices in communities across the country,” Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement.

The proposed rule would change how the housing department evaluates whether local governments and housing agencies are advancing its fair housing goals. Under the rule, local governments would be evaluated based on whether they have been sued by the Departments of Housing and Urban Development or Justice and whether they have provided an adequate supply of quality affordable housing. Fair housing lawsuits by advocacy organizations like the National Fair Housing Alliance would not count against the local entities.