On July 15, HUD announced that it was teaming up with Comcast to expand Comcast’s Internet Essentials program. After this expansion, all public housing and HUD-assisted residents that are within Comcast’s service area are eligible to apply for Internet Essentials. Internet Essentials is Comcast’s high-speed internet adoption program for low-income families. An estimated 2 million HUD-assisted homes will now be eligible for low-cost internet service.
HUD’s full press release can be read here.
In a huge victory for NAHRO and its members, the Senate today approved the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HR 3700) unanimously by a voice vote, sending the bill to the President for his signature.
The bill was approved using a process known as “hot-lining”, a procedure to quickly pass non-controversial legislation. It was passed by the House unanimously on February 2, 2016.
“NAHRO commends the House and the Senate for their work on this critical legislation. With the President’s signature, housing authorities across the country will be able to do their jobs more efficiently and serve their residents and communities better,” said NAHRO President Steve Merritt.
NAHRO thanks everyone involved in the passage of this important legislation, including legislators and their staff, NAHRO membership, and partner housing advocacy groups.
“This is a big deal. The passage of HR 3700 marks the culmination of years of work by members of Congress and their staff, NAHRO members and staff, and the housing community at large. It demonstrates that housing reform is a priority and can be accomplished, and that the legislative process does still work,” said NAHRO’s Acting CEO John Bohm.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has published a Chart Book titled “Rental Assistance Reduces Hardship, Promotes Children’s Long-Term Success.” It has some great charts that help to illustrate why rental assistance is so crucial.
Here’s one taken from page 6 of the chart book PDF that illustrates the benefits of the HUD-VASH program.
The Center’s web-based chart book can be found here.
The Center’s PDF of the chart book can be found here.
On July 6, in an email to Public Housing Agency (PHA) Executive Directors, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Castro Ramirez announced a proposed administrative fee HUD webpage that consolidates information on the new proposed administrative fee formula.
The page includes the following resources:
HUD’s page on the new proposed rule administrative fee formula can be read 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).]
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.
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.
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).
On Friday, June 17, NAHRO submitted to HUD its comment letter on HUD’s UPCS-V Demonstration. NAHRO encourages all interested parties to provide their comments to HUD and comments may be submitted until July 5, 2016. NAHRO’s comments are split into four primary sections. They discuss concerns about the costs of transitioning to the UPCS-V protocol; concerns about the UPCS-V Demonstration; concerns about the protocol itself; and feedback on specific inquiries about the protocol. NAHRO hopes that HUD will carefully consider these comments as it moves forward with the UPCS-V Demonstration.
Members can read NAHRO’s full comments here.
On June 1, 2016, NAHRO partnering with Housing and Development Law Institute (HDLI), Public Housing Authorities Directors Association (PHADA), Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA), and Housing Authority Risk Retention Group, Inc. (HARRG) submitted an Amicus Curiae brief in support of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles’s (HACLA) request for their appeal to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
HACLA reduced its Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Payment Standards and provided a flyer to all voucher holders at the time of the resident’s annual recertification. The flyer stated the effective date and that the new payment standards would not apply until the resident’s “next regular reexamination.” HACLA also held public meetings and sent a “four-week notice” to residents before the payment standard was applied. Two residents filed suit against HACLA claiming HACLA’s failure to provide understandable information about the payment standard change and its one-year application date violated the residents’ constitutional procedural due process rights and various state laws. HACLA prevailed at the trial court level. The residents appealed, and the case was sent back to the trial court. HACLA prevailed again, and the resident appealed again. At this time, the appeal court (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit) ruled in favor of the residents with specific directions for the residents to prevail at the trial court.
Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) around the nation should have certainty about what constitutes notice when changing HCV payment standards, which the current regulation provides. NAHRO will continue to follow the progress of this case (Nozzi v. HACLA) and would like to hear from other PHAs that may be in the same situation.
Click here for NAHRO’s June 15, 2016 Monitor which contains additional analysis on Nozzi v. HACLA (members only).
The NAHRO Blog: Legislative & Policy Updates from Washington, DC 