Yesterday, HUD’s Housing Voucher Financial Management Division sent an email stating that the CY 2018 Administrative Fee Rate Tables have been posted on HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program page.
The CY 2018 Administrative Fee Rates Description can be found here.
The CY 2018 Administrative Fee Rate Tables can be found here.
The Office of Housing Choice Vouchers website (where the tables are posted) can be found here.
Earlier today, HUD published a notice in the Federal Register titled “Fair Market Rents for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program Fiscal Year 2018; Revised.” The notice updates the FY 2018 FMRs based on new survey data for the following eight areas:
These eight areas requested reevaluation and provided data to HUD to allow for a reevaluation. The notice also responds to comments previously submitted.
The full notice can be found here.
After a brief government shutdown this morning, Congress approved a two-year budget deal and a continuing resolution that re-opened the government. While the budget deal includes an increase to non-defense spending for FY 2018, there is no guarantee that additional funding will be allocated to housing and community development programs- contact your legislators today to tell them to increase funding for HUD programs in the current fiscal year.
The budget deal package includes:
Now that the spending cap for FY 2018 has been set, appropriators can get to work finalizing spending for the current fiscal year. At this point, the process basically starts over again. The chairs of the Appropriations Committee will re-allocate funding to all 12 appropriations bills, including the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) bill. Once the new 302(b) allocations are set, appropriators will work to finalize spending bills and assemble an omnibus spending package. All this work needs to be completed in six weeks before the expiration of the current CR on March 23.
Just because there is an additional $63 billion in funding for FY 2018 doesn’t mean THUD or HUD will necessarily see any of that increase. It’s critical that you reach out to your legislators immediately to urge them to allocate as much funding as possible to THUD and HUD. NAHRO will also send a message to Capitol Hill next week encouraging robust funding of THUD and HUD.
Earlier today, HUD published a notice titled “Funding Availability for Set-Aside Tenant-Protection Vouchers – Fiscal Year 2017 Funding” (PIH 2018-02; H 2018-01). In it, HUD makes 5 million dollars available from the Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 Appropriations Act that the bill allocated for Tenant Protection-Vouchers (TPVs) for certain at-risk households in low-vacancy areas.
Major changes from the FY 2016 Funding Availability for Tenant-Protection Vouchers notice include the following:
NAHRO is still in the process of reading through this notice and will supply additional details to its members.
The notice can be found here.
HUD has posted a pre-publication copy of the “Allocations, Common Application, Waivers, and Alternative Requirements for 2017 Disaster Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Grantees” notice. The notice is to be published in the Federal Register and will be applicable five days after being published.
As HUD’s summary states, “This notice allocates $7.39 billion in Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery (CDBG-DR) funds appropriated by the Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Requirements, 2017, for the purpose of assisting in long-term recovery from 2017 disasters. This notice describes applicable waivers and alternative requirements, relevant statutory provisions for grants provided under this notice, the grant award process, criteria for action plan approval, and eligible disaster recovery activities. Given the extent of damage to housing in the eligible disaster areas and the very limited data at present regarding unmet infrastructure and economic revitalization needs, this notice requires each grantee to primarily consider and address its unmet housing recovery needs.”
Breakdown of the $7.39 billion:
Congress continues to discuss additional supplemental distaster funding for the 2017 disaster. NAHRO is following these discussions and will share additional information as it becomes known.
As of this writing, a federal shutdown is in effect while Congress works on a Continuing Resolution to fund the government. While we hear that HUD is confident that February payments will be loaded and available to public housing authorities (PHAs), there is no guarantee of this. We strongly encourage NAHRO members to call their Representatives and their Senators, and to let them know that the government shutdown will jeopardize the rental payments and therefore the housing of the public housing and Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher residents we serve.For more information, see HUD’s current shutdown plan (PDF). More information is also available on the HUD website. NAHRO will continue to monitor the situation and keep members informed.
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.
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.
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).]
A HUD official emailed us to let us know that the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Forecasting tool now includes an estimated inflation factor for 2018. A PHA forecasting HAP for next year using the tool can now use both an estimated Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) proration (the default proration set for 2018 is 96%; it can be changed to model different scenarios) and an estimated inflation factor (the inflation factor is estimated to be 2.05% for 56% of PHAs). Setting a proration to 96% and using an inflation factor of 2% is equivalent to a 98% proration using the tool before this revision.
The HCV two-year tool can be accessed from HUD’s Office of Housing Choice Vouchers website.
The NAHRO Blog: Legislative & Policy Updates from Washington, DC 