On Friday, HUD sent an email announcing a new list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that responds to the new notice delaying the submission date for the local government Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH). HUD “strongly encourages program participants to visit [the FAQ].” The new notice can be found on the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) HUD Exchange webpage.
The FAQ can be found here.
Tomorrow, HUD will publish a notice in the Federal Register titled “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: Extension of Deadline for Submission of Assessment of Fair Housing for Consolidated Plan Participants.” The notice states that for local government consolidated plan participants, the deadline for submitting their Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH) will be extended to the next AFH submission date after October 31, 2020. Although the notice will be effective immediately after publication in the Federal Register, HUD is inviting public comment for 60 days on the extension. [1/5/18 Edit – Comments are due by March 6, 2018.]
The notice extends the deadline for submission of an AFH to all local government consolidated plan program participants to the AFH submission deadline after October 31, 2020. Local governments that qualified for a previous extension under a October 24, 2016 notice are also covered under this extension. All local government program participants must still comply with the statutory obligation of affirmatively furthering fair housing.
Until a consolidated plan program participant is required to submit an AFH, it will continue to provide the AFFH Consolidated plan certification in accordance with requirements that existed prior to August 17, 2015. These requirements obligated a program participant to certify that it would affirmatively further fair housing by conducting an Analysis of Impediments (AI) to fair housing choice within the jurisdiction and take action to overcome the effects of the identified impediments.
For program participants starting a new 3 to 5 year consolidated plan cycle, the AI should continue to be updated until those consolidated plan program participants submit an AFH after October 31, 2020. Program participants that have already submitted an AFH which has been accepted by HUD must continue to execute the goals of that AFH (they are not required to perform an additional AI). Program participants that received a non-accept decision should not submit their revised AFHs. HUD will discontinue the review of AFHs currently under review and will not render an accept, deemed accepted, or non-accept determination.
HUD has posted it’s updated schedule for Calendar Year (CY) 2018 Operating Subsidy Process to the CY 2018 Operating Subsidy Processing Webpage.
HUD will release the PHA tools Form HUD-52723 and Form HUD-52722 by Friday, Jan. 12, or earlier. PHAs must submit these forms to their Field Offices no later than February 2. HUD will publish preliminary eligibility for 2018 based upon HUD-52723 by March 5, and and PHAs will be required to contact HUD with any issues regarding their preliminary eligibility by March 12.
This update is for the plaintiffs of the 2017 judgment on the 2012 public housing offset litigation (the first round of litigation.)
The Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a request to the Judgment Fund for the payment of damages on December 21, 2017, for all but 23 of the plaintiffs. The reason a payment request was not sent for the other 23 is that the plaintiff’s attorneys did not have the banking information when they originally sent the information for the other plaintiffs to DOJ. The attorneys now have the banking information for 18 of the 23 and will send it to DOJ in the near future. If you are one of the five remaining plaintiffs that have not submitted your banking information, submit your banking information as soon as possible to the plaintiff’s attorneys.
Assuming there aren’t any problems with the information that DOJ sent to the Judgment Fund, the awardee plaintiffs should receive the damages to which you are entitled in a few weeks. Please note that the Judgment Fund will not notify you when it wires your payments to you. Therefore, you will have to monitor the bank account into which you requested that the funds be wired to determine when you receive your payment.
On Friday, December 29, HUD sent an email stating that a Federal Court has set aside the Small Area FMR Suspension. The suspension, citing harm to vulnerable households, would have delayed the implementation of Small Area FMRs until 2020. The email states that “PHAs must immediately take all steps necessary with respect to dedicating monetary and human resources towards the implementation; as well as integrating the new FMR requirements in any planning the PHA conducts. As expeditiously as possible, HUD will issue guidance addressing implementation issues, technical assistance, and potential obstacles to implementation.”
NAHRO is in the process of working with HUD to help implement Small Area FMRs for those members who must now use them.
A HUD official emailed us to let us know that the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Forecasting tool has again been updated. This time, the tool includes an automatic trending of per unit costs (PUC) in years 1 and 2. Users may still adjust this trend depending on the on-the-ground circumstances. This change was made because “in 2017 as PUCs have gone up more around the nation, may PHAs have not accounted for the trend in future months, leading to shortfalls.”
The HCV forecasting tool can be accessed here.
HUD’s Office of Inspector General has published their semiannual report to Congress. These reports are “intended to keep the Secretary and the Congress fully informed of significant findings, progress the Agency has made and recommendations for improvement.”
The report can be found here.
Earlier today, HUD’s Financial Management Center sent a letter informing PHAs of potential funding scenarios for Calendar Year (CY) 2018. The letter stated that the federal budget is currently being governed by a Continuing Resolution (CR) until Jan. 19, 2018. At that time, Congress may pass a budget or a year-long CR. The letter uses the amounts allocated for Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) and Administrative Fees in the House and Senate appropriations bills to estimate prorations for 2018. These estimations can be found in the table below.
| Senate bill (S. 1655) | House bill (H.R. 3353) | |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative Fee | 76.153% | 70.233% |
| Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) | 98.810% | 95.301% |
HUD notes that the proration levels were calculated by “estimating the full HCV program need for 2018 and comparing the program need to the available funding.” HUD recommends that PHAs assess their projected leasing and spending by modeling both scenarios. HUD also recommends using the forecasting tool.
The full letter can be read here (in Word format).
[12/28/17 Edit – HUD FMC sent another letter with an alternative link to the tool (if you were having trouble with the link above).]
On December 27, HUD issued a notice announcing allocations, common application, waivers, and alternative requirements for Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) to the state of Texas. The notice allocates $57,800,000 of CDBG-DR funds to the State of Texas in response to Hurricane Harvey. Funds must be used only for specific disaster recovery related purposes. The notice is applicable starting January 2, 2018.
On December 23, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered HUD to implement the mandatory components of the Small Area FMR rule on January 1, 2018 (preliminarily enjoined HUD’s suspension of mandatory FMRs). Those PHAs that are in one of the twenty-four designated metropolitan areas must implement Small Area FMRs. Previously, HUD had suspended the mandatory implementation of Small Area FMRs citing concerns about the potential harm Small Area FMRs will have on vulnerable households from a recently published Interim Report on the Small Area FMR Demonstration (which was testing the efficacy of Small Area FMRs), among other reasons.
Moving forward, NAHRO will take a two-pronged approach on this issue. First, NAHRO will work with HUD to help PHAs implement Small Area FMRs as quickly as possible. Second, NAHRO will explore options to grant PHAs greater flexibility in serving vulnerable households with respect to this and other issues.
Additional information on the court’s reasoning can be found by clicking on the link below.
The NAHRO Blog: Legislative & Policy Updates from Washington, DC 