Section 8

Vera Technical Assistance Grant Application Due Friday, Feb 28th

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

As previously mentioned on this blog, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) is seeking applications for technical assistance from PHAs that would like to plan and implement reentry programs or change their policies toward people with conviction histories. Applications are due in one week on Friday, February 28, 2020.

The goals of the initiative include the following: increase housing for people with conviction histories while increasing public safety; improve the safety of public housing through the use of reentry strategies; and promote collaboration between PHAs, law enforcement, and other criminal justice stakeholders.

Housing authorities of all sizes (including those with housing choice vouchers) are encouraged to apply. Applicants must submit a letter of intent, an application narrative, and letters of support. Award announcements will be made in April.

Additional information may be found here.

Housing Choice Voucher Dashboard Published

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today, HUD announced that it published a Housing Choice Voucher Dashboard. The dashboard provides information about vouchers at both the state and national levels. It includes budget and leasing utilization information, reserve balance information (it highlights PHAs that have high reserves as a percentage of their budget authority and in absolute terms), attrition, per unit cost trends, and leasing potential. There is also utilization data on special purpose vouchers (HUD-VASH, FUP, Mainstream, etc.). The data is mostly taken from the voucher management system.

A tutorial on the dashboard can be found above.

The dashboard data dictionary can be found here.

The dashboard itself can be found here.

HUD Posts First HCV Landlord Participation webinar

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this week, HUD was supposed to livestream a Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Landlord Participation webinar, but was unable to stream it because of technical difficulties. Despite the difficulties, the Department was able to record the webinar and has now made it publicly available. It can be found here.

Slides for the webinar can be found here.

Guidance on Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Released

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Labradoodle_Assistance_Dogs

Yesterday, HUD released a notice (FHEO-2020-01) titled “Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act.” The notice provides PHAs (and other housing providers) with a set of best practices to assess requests for reasonable accommodations to keep animals in housing while complying with the Fair Housing Act (FHA).

The notice states that FHA complaints involving requests for reasonable accommodations for assistance animals are on the rise. One of the purposes of this guidance is to help housing providers distinguish between a person with a non-obvious disability who has a legitimate need for an assistance animal and a person without a disability who wants to have a pet (or otherwise circumvent a rule applicable to a pet).

The guidance does several things. First, it provides a framework for identifying service animals. Second, it provides a framework to analyze reasonable accommodation requests under the Fair Housing Act for assistance animals other than service animals (There are two types of assistance animals–“service animals” and “support animals”; the latter are trained or untrained animals that do work, perform tasks, provide assistance, or emotional support for individuals with disabilities that do not fall under the service animals category). Third, the guidance provides criteria for assessing whether to grant a requested accommodation. Fourth, the guidance provides information on which types of animals (i.e., species of animals) are acceptable in which situations. Fifth, the guidance provides additional considerations that must be taken into account.

Additionally, there is a second section of the notice which provides a section on documenting an individual’s need for assistance animals in housing and provides a series of frequently-asked questions and accompanying answers.

The full guidance can be found here.

Supreme Court Allows Implementation of Public Charge Rule

~ Georgi Banna ~ Leave a comment

The United States Supreme Court permitted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make effective the administration’s public charge rule. The rule had been blocked from taking effect by a federal judge in New York. The Supreme Court allows it to be implemented in most of the country—except Illinois where it is still blocked. The rule states that any individual seeking a green card to become a lawful permanent resident (and individuals within the United States who hold non-immigrant visas and wish to extend their stay in the same non-immigrant classification or change their status to a different non-immigrant classification) is inadmissible if they are likely to become a public charge.

The rule defines a “public charge” based on the receipt of financial support from the general public through government funding, including federal rental assistance. The individual would need to receive one or more designated public benefits, including but not limited to federal rental assistance, for more than 12 months in the aggregate within any 36-month period to meet the threshold.

The Department of Homeland Security is not imposing any requirements on benefit-granting agencies through this final rule or a requirement that these agencies specifically verify information individuals submit to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This rule does not change any of the Public Housing, HCV, or PBRA program requirements. The Department of Homeland Security plans to enter into information-sharing agreements with specific agencies (e.g., the Department of Housing and Urban Development) to obtain verification of the information supplied by applicants. Any information sharing will depend on the ability of the relevant agencies to share such information with DHS.

The final rule can be found here.

The Supreme Court’s opinion can be found here.

NAHRO’s one-page guidance on the Public Charge rule can be found here.

Policies and Procedures for Mainstream Vouchers Published

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this week, HUD published a notice (PIH 2020-01) titled “Revised Policies and Procedures for the Mainstream Voucher Program.” The notice updates HUD’s policies related to the mainstream voucher program and applies to all mainstream vouchers. It became effective upon publication.

The notice lists mainstream  voucher policies. It clarifies who the eligible population for these vouchers are (households that include a non-elderly person with disabilities); clarifies that participants do not “age out” of eligibility; highlights that at turnover, all mainstream vouchers must be reissued to the next mainstream-eligible family; reiterates that mainstream vouchers are regular housing choice vouchers (HCVs) with special eligibility criteria; restates that the vouchers are for new admissions of households; and states that a PHA may only have one waiting list for all tenant-based assistance.

Additionally, the Department discusses admissions preferences. First, preferences apply to all vouchers, not only Mainstream vouchers. If a PHA claimed a preference in its notice of funding availability (NOFA) application, then the PHA must adopt a preference for at least one of the targeted groups in the NOFA. Additionally, PHAs may limit the number of applicants who qualify for the preference. The PHA also has the option to open the PHA waiting list for a limited preference. Finally, the PHA must update preference policies and procedures on how preferences will be applied.

The notice also discusses waiting list updates, portability, funding, tracking and monitoring these vouchers, and partnerships and supportive services.  Questions about the program can be directed to MainstreamVouchers@hud.gov.

The full notice can be found here.

Summary of HCV Landlord Listening Sessions Published

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

[1/29/2020 – Links to the summary have been updated to reference an updated version of the summary. The original summary has been removed from HUD’s website.]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has published a summary of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program landlord listening sessions it conducted in late 2018. The summary lists the qualities of the HCV program which both attract and drive off landlords from participating in the program. A brief outline of them is presented below.

  • Qualities of the HCV program that attract landlords:
    • National;
      • Helping people who need housing;
      • Receiving a stable, reliable source of income from HUD;
    • Regional;
      • Required by law in some jurisdictions to accept vouchers; and
      • Existence of damage mitigation programs which help landlords repair tenant-caused damages;
  • Qualities of the HCV program that drive off landlords:
    • National;
      • No single point of contact for landlords and other communication deficiencies;
      • Inspections;
        • Delays in the inspection process;
        • Lack of consistency between inspections;
        • Not being informed of changed appointment times by inspectors;
        • Too few inspectors;
        • Not being informed of cancelled appointments in a timely manner;
      • Tenant damages;
        • Lacking a mechanism of collecting on tenant-caused damages;
        • Lacking a way to remove damage-causing tenants;
        • Requirements to repair a unit;
        • Unknown tenant-caused damages cause units to fail inspections;
      • Application and Move-in;
        • Concerns about
          • approved rent amounts;
          • length of time for application approval; and
          • inspections;
      • Voucher and Approved Rent amount;
        • Lack of clarity about required amenities and conditions of units;
        • Fair Market Rents (FMRs) not keeping pace with the local market;
      • Administrative delays;
        • Lack of being able to submit paperwork electronically;
        • Lack of staff that could approve cases during holidays and vacation times;
    • Regional;
      • Confusion over widely varying rent amounts in areas that use Small Area FMRs;
      • Annoyance at the different paperwork and rules for each PHA, in areas where there are multiple PHAs with overlapping jurisdictions;
      • Cumbersome process to access damage mitigation funds in those areas which use them; and
      • The requirement to treat voucher holders differently by requiring a one-year lease initially, when the norm in the market is month-to-month leases.

While the causes of landlord dissatisfaction are multi-faceted and may vary by jurisdiction, NAHRO believes that fully funding the administrative fee account will help PHAs address many of these issues.

The above is a brief outline of the report and excludes details for added brevity. The full summary can be found here.

Voucher Reporting Deadlines

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

Earlier today, HUD’s Financial Management Division sent an email with two reporting deadlines for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. These deadlines are the following:

  • Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020 – for December 2019 Voucher Management System (VMS) reporting and prior period adjustments (including 2019 cash management adjustments) to be entered; and
  • Friday, Feb., 21, 2020 – all Public Housing Information Center (PIC) reporting must be up to date.

Questions can be directed to your PHA’s FMC Financial Analyst or sent to PIH.Financial.Management.Division@hud.gov.

HUD Offers Webinar on Landlord Participation

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The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Landlord Task Force is offering the first in a series of webinars on landlord participation. The webinar will take place on Jan. 29th at 1 to 2:30 pm ET. This webinar “will provide an overview of HUD’s recent engagement with landlords . . . and public housing authority (PHA) representatives.” In those engagement events, HUD learned about strategies that PHAs are using to recruit and retain landlords for their HCV programs. Prior registration is required to participate in the webinar. Future webinars in the series are tentatively scheduled for April and July 2020.

Registration for the webinar can be found here.

A flyer for the webinar can be found here.

Vera Offering Technical Assistance to PHAs that Seek to Implement Reentry Programs

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) is soliciting applications from PHAs that would like to plan and implement reentry programs or change their policies toward people with conviction histories. Applications are due February 28, 2020.

The goals of the initiative are the following (quoted from Vera):

  1. increase housing access for people with conviction histories and increase public safety in communities that people return to on release from jails and prisons;
  2. improve the safety of public housing and surrounding communities through the use of reentry housing strategies; and
  3. promote collaboration among public housing authorities, law enforcement agencies, and other criminal justice stakeholders to effectively reduce crime and improve reentry outcomes for people leaving prisons and jails.

Vera encourages PHAs of all sizes–including those with Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) programs–to apply. Applicants must submit a letter of intent, an application narrative, and letters of support. While PHAs will first be informed, Vera will make a public announcement in April.

Additional information can be found here.