On August 9, HUD issued to Congress its 16th report on worst case housing needs in the United States, based on 2015 data. Households with “worst case needs” are those that are very low income, do not receive government housing assistance and either pay more than 1/2 of their income for rent or live in… Continue Reading
In a new audit report, HUD’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) questioned certain costs paid by a public housing authority (PHA) for travel by the PHA’s commissioners. The OIG alleges violations of uniform cost principals at 2 CFR Part 200, state open meeting laws, as well as the PHA’s own policies. The report is a… Continue Reading
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) released the Fiscal Year 2017 Housing Trust Fund (HTF) allocation amounts on June 20, 2017, setting forth the amounts awarded to each state or territory under the HTF. The total HTF allocation for Fiscal Year 2017 is $219,168,373.94, including $12,702,747.00 in unallocated funds from Fiscal Year 2016. The… Continue Reading
At the National Housing Conference 2017 Annual Policy Symposium on June 9, 2017, HUD Secretary Ben Carson delivered the keynote address and participated in a Q&A session with Chris Estes, President and CEO of NHC. While much of the keynote address focused on homeownership issues, remarks made during the Q&A included such topics as the… Continue Reading
In an interview with U.S. News and World Reports on “The Future of Affordable Housing in the Trump Era,” Amy McClain, who leads Ballard Spahr’s government-assisted housing practice (and is a frequent Housing Plus blogger), cautions that while she doesn’t expect budget cuts to be as severe as those proposed, funding for affordable housing is under… Continue Reading
On September 28, 2016, HUD published a notice in the Federal Register to solicit comments to revised form documents used in the Rental Assistance Demonstration (“RAD”). This notice follows a 60-day comment period on earlier draft changes to the form documents. However, noted in the notice, HUD only received six sets of public comments in… Continue Reading
On May 17, 2016, HUD published a notice in the Federal Register to announce the issuance of the “Processing Guide for Previous Participation Reviews of Prospective Multifamily Housing and Healthcare Programs’ Participants” (the “Processing Guide”). A copy of the Processing Guide can be accessed here. HUD proposes that the Processing Guide be used to supplement the proposed rule published in August that announced… Continue Reading
On March 23, 2016, HUD published a notice in the Federal Register to announce the issuance of an Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool for Public Housing Authorities (the “PHA Assessment Tool”). Under the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (“AFFH”) final rule published on July 16, 2015, program participants are required to conduct an Assessment of… Continue Reading
On February 3, 2016, HUD published a notice in the Federal Register to announce that “it is considering rulemaking to ensure that individuals and families residing in HUD public housing in fact continue to need housing assistance from HUD after admission.” HUD cites the July 2015 report by its Office of the Inspector General, which… Continue Reading
The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy recently released “Inclusionary Housing: Creating and Maintaining Equitable Communities,” a new report on the use of government policies that tie the creation of affordable housing to market-rate residential or commercial development. The use of inclusionary housing programs is relatively new (most were adopted in the last decade), but growing.… Continue Reading
As a follow up to our March 24, 2015 and April 1, 2015 posts, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a notice updating the interim regulation at 24 CFR Part 135, which provides for compliance with Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (Section 3). The purpose… Continue Reading
The Housing Plus Blog has previously reported on the “Poor Door” controversy on August 14, 2014 and September 3, 2014. The New York Times reported on April 20, 2015 that 88,000 people applied for the 55 units located in the much reported “Poor Door” building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The “Poor Door” controversy… Continue Reading
The IRS has released guidance in three areas of interest to entities that benefit from tax-exempt bond financings, particularly hospitals and educational institutions. This guidance creates new rules related to management contracts and participation by a nonprofit entity in an accountable care organization (ACO), final rules addressing requirements for charitable hospital organizations added by the… Continue Reading
The Senate passed the “Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014” (H.R. 5771) on Tuesday night just before Congress adjourned for 2014. As Molly Bryson described in her December 5, 2014 post following the House’s passage of the bill, the tax extenders package provides a one-year retroactive extension of certain tax provisions that expired at the… Continue Reading
House and Senate leaders have come to an agreement on a spending bill that contains a major win for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: the expansion of the Rental Assistance Demonstration, allowing for the conversion of up to 185,000 units of public housing. The proposed Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of… Continue Reading
