On Tuesday, July 12, HUD will hold a webinar on the FY2016 HUD-VASH Project-Based Voucher Set-Aside Notice published on Friday, July 1. The webinar will run from 2-3PM, EST, and will allow time for questions. The webinar is intended for PHA staff, Department of Veteran’s Affairs staff, low-income housing developers, and other interested stakeholders. More information on the Notice can be found here.
Register for the webinar here.
As we mentioned and summarized in our earlier post, HUD has published a revised version of the new administrative fee formula for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program. The proposed revision to the new administrative fee formula has now been officially posted to the Federal Register. Comments on the revision to the new administrative fee will be due on October 4, 2016.
HUD has also posted a new administrative fee formula data tool. By entering your PHA code, you can compare how much you would have been eligible for under the new formula to the actual amount you received in 2015. You can also adjust the proration for 2015 to create a more apples-to-apples comparison (i.e., compare full eligibility under the current formula to full eligibility under the revised new formula in Calendar Year 2015).
NAHRO will continue to analyze the new formula and bring you the latest analysis and updates.
You can find the new revision to the proposed administrative fee formula here.
You can find HUD’s PHA Admin Fee Tool 2015 here.
[Edit: We have now sent a Direct News item on the new proposed administrative fee formula (members only).]
On July 1, HUD released Notice PIH 2016-11 (HA) entitled, “Set-Aside Funding Availability for Project-Basing HUD-VASH Vouchers.” The Notice announces the availability of approximately $15 million in HUD-VASH funding that will support 2,000 units of project based voucher (PBV) assistance to enable homeless veterans and their families to access affordable housing with an array of supportive services. The vouchers are being made available from a set-aside contained in the 2016 omnibus that provided approximately $60 million dollars of funding for HUD-VASH vouchers.
Any PHA that administers a Housing Choice Voucher program may apply for up to 150 units to be placed under PBV HAP contract(s). Applications are due no later than midnight in the time zone of the PHA on September 9, 2016. All applications must be submitted electronically to VASH@hud.gov.
Please see HUD’s Notice for more information on application requirements and scoring.
For in-depth information on the 2016 omnibus’ Section 8 program funding, click here (members only).
HUD has published its revision of the new administrative fee formula for the Housing Choice Voucher Program. The new formula would calculate administrative fees on the basis of six variables:
The PHA’s fees would be calculated yearly and then have a revised inflation factor applied to the calculated fee.
HUD has made three major changes to the prior formula:
NAHRO is still in the preliminary stages of analyzing the formula. Additional details and analysis will be forthcoming.
The full notice can be read here.
NAHRO’s comments on the previous formula can be read here.
On June 30, HUD, in collaboration with the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, released the “It Starts with Housing: Public Housing Agencies are Making Second Chances Real,” toolkit. The toolkit highlights innovative models that PHAs can use to improve housing opportunities for individuals that have been involved with the criminal justice system. The goal of the toolkit is to help PHAs improve housing opportunities, promote family reunification, and reduce recidivism. The toolkit discusses how to build a successful reentry program, determine who should be served, outreach to potential participants, service provision, and collaborations to achieve the policy changes necessary to serve this population.
HUD has been actively promoting increased housing opportunities for individuals with criminal backgrounds. This includes recent HUD guidance prohibiting the use of arrest records as the basis for denying admission, terminating assistance, or evicting tenants, and recent HUD OGC guidance on the use of criminal records to determine housing eligibility. Past NAHRO coverage on the arrest records guidance can be found here and past NAHRO coverage on the OGC guidance can be found here (members only). NAHRO’s letter to HUD regarding the use of arrest records can be found here (members only).
Today, HUD published a list of forty-two PHAs that received a combined total of $5 million in extraordinary administrative fees for their HUD-VASH programs. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Lourdes Castro-Ramirez for Public and Indian Housing stated that “[t]hese housing authorities are going above and beyond in the movement to end veteran homelessness.”
The funds were awarded to agencies that are taking aggressive efforts in housing veterans. Activities that these agencies are performing and will continue to perform with these funds include marketing campaigns to recruit landlords; hiring temporary staff to provide housing search assistance; expediting document processing; inspecting units; issuing vouchers; and executing leases.
Read HUD’s full press release here.
Yesterday, HUD published the FY 2016 Continuum of Care (CoC) Program Competition Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), making $1.9 billion available in funds available for continuums across the nation. For this competition, the total amount of funding available may not cover all anticipated eligible renewal projects and HUD continues to require CoCs to rank their projects into two tiers (Tier 1 and Tier 2). The submission deadline for this competition is Wednesday, September 14, 2016.
A few notable changes to this year’s NOFA include:
HUD’s announcement for the competition also included a message encouraging CoCs to reallocate funds from lower performing transitional housing projects serving households fleeing domestic violence to other types of projects serving people fleeing domestic violence. This would “ensure that CoC-funded projects serving people fleeing domestic violence are as effective as possible.” HUD will soon release further guidance on this issue.
On June 29 and 30, NAHRO staff met with HUD staff to discuss the Moving to Work (MTW) Expansion that was included in the FY 2016 Omnibus and the upcoming smoke-free final rule. HUD also hosted a Small Area Fair Market Rent (SAFMR) proposed rule briefing.
Although HUD is still finalizing the MTW Expansion, they recently unveiled their MTW Expansion website, which contains information on the expansion process. HUD has also posted a MTW Expansion Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document.
According to HUD, a PIH notice should be published in the fall of 2016 soliciting applications for the initial cohort of new MTW PHAs. Additional cohorts of MTW PHAs will be added through separate notices through 2020 or until a total of 100 new MTW PHAs have been added. HUD has yet to determine the number of cohorts that will be included in the expansion nor specific policies to be tested through the expansion. The Secretary will weigh the advice of the MTW expansion advisory committee before determining both of these matters. For each cohort of new MTW PHAs, the specific policy proposals and methods of research and evaluation will be described in the PIH notice to be published in the fall of 2016. NAHRO’s policy proposals and recommended research evaluation methods for HUD regarding the MTW expansion can be found here (members only).
HUD plans to release the Instituting Smoke-Free Final Rule late summer or early fall. Although the rule is still undergoing the rule making process, NAHRO staff has learned HUD plans to submit the final rule to the Office of Management and Budget shortly. NAHRO was able to provide HUD staff with input on members concerns regarding the proposed rule. NAHRO’s comments on HUD’s proposed rule can be found here (members only).
HUD also hosted a briefing on the proposed SAFMR rule. The briefing went over the basics of the proposed rule and reviewed specific areas on which HUD was seeking comment. Comments and questions posed at the briefing from industry and advocacy groups included a question about the variability of all Fair Market Rents (FMRS) (to which HUD responded that they are working on a new methodology for FY 2017 FMRs); the current status of the SAFMR demonstration (it’s still going); and whether tenants who receive a subsidy cut in certain zip codes because of the SAFMR rule will be able to find housing in other zip codes because there are not enough available units or because landlords are not accepting vouchers (HUD does not know how to deal with this problem). Read our coverage of the proposed SAFMR rule here (members only).
HUD has released PIH-Notice 2016-10, REV-1, entitled “Public Housing Operating Subsidy Calculations for Calendar Year 2016.” The notice provides public housing agencies (PHAs) with instructions for the calculation of operating subsidy eligibility in Calendar Year (CY) 2016.
HUD’s Office of Public and Indian Housing also released its Explanation of Obligations for May and June 2016. Funding for May and June uses a proration level of 89.73 percent.This rate may fluctuate throughout the year.
More information can be found here (members only).
HUD has posted additional information on its new Small Area FMR rule titled “Establishing a More Effective Fair Market Rent (FMR) System; Using Small Area Fair Market Rents in Housing Choice Voucher Program Instead of the Current 50th Percentile FMRs.” HUD has posted a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) and a one page fact sheet.
Here’s an excerpt from the FAQ about HUD’s anticipated timeline:
The NAHRO Blog: Legislative & Policy Updates from Washington, DC 