Month: January 2021

HHS Extends CDC Eviction Moratorium to March 31

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department made available a pre-publication copy of an order extending the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) eviction moratorium. The eviction moratorium has been extended to March 31, 2021. Additionally, the order now also applies to American Samoa–although it had not previously–because COVID-19 cases have now been reported there.

NAHRO members will receive additional information on this order.

A pre-publication copy of the order can be found here.

Clean Air For All Webinar on Resident Engagement

~ Eric Oberdorfer ~ Leave a comment

Tomorrow, January 27 from 1-2:00 pm CT, Zoom

Clean Air for All invites you to join us for an upcoming webinar- Working Together: Resident Engagement during (and after) the Pandemic. We will discuss ways to engage residents in a building’s smoke-free policy and cessation efforts, both remotely and in person.

Webinar Objectives
· Highlight successful resident engagement efforts that have occurred at PHAs
· Outline strategies to help PHAs keep residents engaged both in person and remotely
· Describe resources available for resident engagement

Speakers
–    Mr. Georgi Banna, National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials
–    Ms. Lorraine Lathen, Jump at the Sun Consultants, Wisconsin African American Tobacco Control Network
–    Mr. Ernest Watts, Robeson County Health Department, North Carolina
–    Kara Skahen, Clean Air for All: The Smoke-Free Public Housing Project

Register here!

$20 million NOFA for Competitive FUP Vouchers Published

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, HUD released a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for $20 million of competitive funding for Family Unification Program (FUP) vouchers. These vouchers are for youth aging out of foster care. The appropriations acts of 2020 and 2021 each contained $10 million in competitive FUP funding for youths aging out of foster care. This notice would distribute the competitive FUP allocations for youth aging out of foster care for both of those years. The Department expects to make approximately 40 awards from the funds. No award will be for less than 3 vouchers, while the maximum award will vary depending on the size of the PHA’s program (25 vouchers for programs with fewer than 500 vouchers; 50 vouchers for programs between and including 500 and 1.999 vouchers; and 75 vouchers for programs with 2,000 or more vouchers). The application deadline is March 22, 2021.

The full NOFA can be found here.

HUD Updates Demolition and Disposition Notice

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today, HUD published PIH 2021-07, titled “Demolition and/or disposition of public housing property, eligibility for tenant-protection vouchers, and associated requirements.” This notice updates PIH 2018-04, which was the prior demolition and disposition notice.

The new notice makes several non-substantive and substantive revisions to the prior notice. Non-substantive revisions include clarifying headings, adding spacing between paragraphs, re-numbering paragraphs, and correcting citations to regulatory provisions, which make for a clearer document. Substantive changes in this notice include the following:

  • HUD’s Special Applications Center (SAC) no longer claims to return a SAC application that is substantially incomplete or deficient, while informing a PHA of its deficiencies (previously, SAC would “return” the application by changing the status of the application to DRAFT in the Inventory Management System/PIH Information Center [IMS/PIC]);
  • The Department clarifies that PHAs must not just make resident consultation accessible, but rather that “PHAs must ensure that communications and materials are accessible to individuals with disabilities and take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to persons with Limited English Proficiency (LEP)”;
  • Use of proceeds is no longer a material term of the SAC application, so if a PHA’s plan on the use of proceeds changes after HUD approval of an application, a PHA would no longer have to request an amendment to the application;
  • Includes new RAD/Section 18 blends;
    • RAD/Section 18 Construction Blend – the percentage of units eligible for disposition is based on hard construction costs for new construction or rehabilitation of the covered project. Transactions that use the 9 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit are not eligible.
      • If hard construction costs equal 90 percent of the Housing Construction Costs (HCC) as published by HUD for a given market area, the PHA may dispose of up to 60 percent of the units of the converting project under Section 18;
        • For high-cost areas (HCC exceeds 120 percent of the national average), a PHA may dispose of up to 80 percent of the units of the converting project under Section 18;
      • If the hard construction costs equal or exceed 60 percent, but are less than 90 percent, of HCC, the a PHA may dispose of up to 40 percent of the units of the converting project under Section 18;
      • If the hard construction costs equal or exceed 30 percent, but are less than 60 percent, of HCC the PHA may dispose of up to 20 percent of the units of the converting project under Section 18;
    • RAD/Section 18 Small PHA Blend – for any PHA with 250 or fewer public housing units under its Annual Contributions Contract (ACC), up to 80 percent of the units in a converting project may be disposed of under Section 18;
  • The Department clarifies that tenant-protection voucher (TPV) requests first go to the field office for a threshold review before being sent to HUD’s Financial Management Division (FMD), while HUD’s Financial Management Center (FMC) notifies PHAs of the final TPV awards.

The full notice can be found here.

HUD Posts Three Notices

~ Eric Oberdorfer ~ Leave a comment

On January 15, HUD posted three PIH Notices on their website. Notice PIH 2021-04, titled Public Housing Operating Fund (“OpFund”) Grant Eligibility Calculations and Processing for Calendar Year (CY) 2021, provides public housing agencies (PHAs) with instructions for calculating OpFund grants for CY 2021 and establishes submission deadlines. Notice PIH 2021-05, titled Use of Shared Housing in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program, reminds PHAs that Shared Housing remains a permissible and viable option that
may be made available to HCV participants, and of the specific programmatic requirements related to Shared Housing for the HCV program. Lastly, Notice PIH 2021-06, titled Process for Amending ICDBG-CARES Grants, provide ICDBG-CARES grantees with instructions on how to amend the use of existing Indian Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG) Imminent Threat (IT) funds provided under the CARES Act.

Mobility Demonstration Updates

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

The Department has made several updates to the mobility demonstration website. The mobility demonstration will provide funding to PHAs to research the efficacy and cost of providing mobility-related services to voucher participants.

  • On Jan. 14th, HUD updated their Questions and Answers document.
  • On Jan. 6, HUD held a third webinar on the demonstration. The webinar “provided a deeper dive on the application requirements to help PHAs better understand how to submit a proposal to HUD.” A recording can be found here. Slides from the webinar can be found here.
  • Finally, as mentioned before, HUD has also restricted MTW participation in the mobility demonstration in certain ways.

The Department’s application deadline is Feb. 1, 2021.

Additional information on the mobility demonstration can be found on HUD’s website.

MTW Expansion Applications for Cohorts #3 and #4 Posted

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today, HUD published applications to apply for additional cohorts in the Moving to Work (MTW) Expansion. The Moving to Work program allows PHAs additional regulatory flexibilities to implement innovative strategies to house families. The MTW Expansion incorporates a research component with every new cohort of MTW agencies.

The applications can be found here:

NAHRO members will receive additional information about both applications in the coming days.

Assistant PIH Secretary Resigns from HUD

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Assistant Secretary of Public and Indian Housing Hunter Kurtz has resigned from his position, effective at the close of business today.

In an email to housing authority executive directors, Mr. Kurtz wrote: “Being the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing and working with you over the past 18 months has truly been the greatest honor and privilege of my life. During this time, we have done incredible work, in some of the most challenging times our industry has faced. Most importantly we helped the residents of our programs prepare for and respond to a virus, that disproportionately affected the people we serve.”

NAHRO has had a strong working relationship with Assistant Secretary Kurtz.

“He is a thoughtful leader who cares deeply for HUD programs, our public housing and Indian housing agencies, and the people who they serve,” said NAHRO CEO Adrianne Todman. “We are grateful for his work and wish him the best.”

Mr. Kurtz was confirmed on June 20, 2019. He has spent more than 10 years in federal service. He previously served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing, and also served in the White House as the Deputy Chief of Staff at the Council of Economic Advisers.

He was also previously the Deputy Director of Detroit’s Department of Housing and Revitalization, where he managed the department’s day-to-day operations, implemented programs that helped homeowners, and oversaw reform of the department’s contract and procurement processes.

HUD Restricts MTW Participation in the Mobility Demonstration

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Tomorrow, HUD will publish a notice titled “Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers: Implementation of the Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration, Restrictions on Participating in the Mobility Demonstration and the Moving to Work Demonstration Expansion.” To maintain the “Congressionally mandated rigorous evaluation” of the Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration expansion and the mobility demonstration expansion, HUD is restricting the overlap between MTW agencies and agencies that can participate in the mobility demonstration.

In general, PHAs that participate in MTW Expansion cohorts 2, 3, or 4 may not participate in the mobility demonstration program. Housing agencies that participate in MTW Expansion cohorts 1 or 5 may participate, but will have their MTW flexibilities curtailed.

The restrictions are noted below.

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