National Housing Law Project Housing Law Bulletin

The following are housing-related regulations and Notices that HUD and other federal agencies have recently issued. For the most part, the information is taken directly from the agency's summaries in the Federal Register.

Copies of the cited documents may be secured from various sources, including (1) the Handsnet folder at Legal Services/Substantive Law/Housing Forum, (2) the Government Printing Office's site on the World Wide Web, (3) bound volumes of the Federal Register, and (4) HUD. Citations are included with each document to help you secure copies.

HUD Regulations

Admission Preferences, Public Housing Development, and Public Housing Modernization Regulations Technical Amendments; Final Rule
24 C.F.R. Parts 5, 941, 950, and 968
62 Fed. Reg. 27,123-26 (May 16, 1997)

Summary: This final rule makes technical amendments to several of HUD's regulations that affect its assisted housing programs. These amendments make the following changes: (1) revise language in a rule governing admission preferences in the assisted housing programs to make it more general and to cover all the Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments programs it was intended to cover, as evidenced by the Section 8 regulations that cross-reference the preferences rule; (2) restore language regarding "total development cost" that was removed from regulations covering the public housing development program when an interim rule expired on May 29, 1995; (3) restore language stating review criteria for performance under modernization standards; and (4) conform the requirements for paid-off and conveyed Turnkey III units in public housing to those in the Indian housing program. These changes rectify problems that occurred inadvertently in previous rulemakings.

Effective date: June 16, 1997.

Streamlining the Public Housing Admission and Occupancy Regulations
Proposed Rule
24 C.F.R. Parts 960 and 966
62 Fed. Reg. 25,727-38 (May 9, 1997)

Summary: This proposed rule will revise HUD's regulations that govern admission and occupancy issues in the public housing program and will do the following: (1) remove rule text that is repetitive of statutory language and otherwise streamline the rule; (2) respond to relevant recommendations of the Public and Assisted Housing Occupancy Task Force report of April 1994; (3) implement a recent statute regarding screening of applicants for admission and termination of tenancy; (4) add important provisions concerning application processing, previously found only in a superseded Annual Contributions Contract between HUD and Housing Agencies and in HUD Handbooks; and (5) clarify applicability of the part. The overall goal of this rule is to make the regulations clearer and more concise and to implement statutory directives.

Comments due: July 8, 1997.

See the article entitled HUD Proposes Regulations on Admissions, Evictions and Subsidy Terminations, supra in this issue, for more analysis of this rule.

HUD Federal Register Notices

Privacy Act of 1974
Notice of a Computer Matching Program
62 Fed. Reg. 27,770-72 (May 21, 1997)

Summary: In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a), as amended by the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (Pub. L. No. 100-503), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Guidelines on the Conduct of Matching Programs (54 Fed. Reg. 25,818 (June 19, 1989)), and OMB Bulletin 89-22, "Instructions on Reporting Computer Matching Programs to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Congress and the Public," the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is issuing a public notice of its intent to conduct a computer matching program with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to coordinate a computer information system of HUD's, the Credit Alert Interactive Voice Response System (CAIVRS), with DOJ's debtor files. The CAIVRS database now includes information from the Departments of Agriculture, Education and Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration about delinquent debts. This matching capability will allow pre-screening of applicants for debts owed or loans guaranteed by the federal government to ascertain if the applicant is delinquent in paying any such debts. Before granting a loan, a lending agency and/or an authorized lending institution will be able to check the CAIVRS debtor file, which contains the Social Security Numbers (SSNs) of HUD's delinquent debtors and defaulters, and debtor files of the DOJ and verify whether or not the loan applicant is in default on a federal judgment or delinquent on direct or guaranteed loans of participating federal programs. Authorized users place a telephone call to the system, which provides a recorded message followed by a series of instructions, one of which is a request for the SSN of the loan applicant. The system then reports whether the SSN is related to delinquent or defaulted federal obligations for HUD or other agency direct or guaranteed loans. As a result of the information produced by this match, authorized users may not deny, terminate, or make a final decision of any loan assistance to an applicant or take other adverse action against such applicant until an officer or employee of such agency has independently verified the information.

Effective date: Computer matching is expected to begin 40 days after publication of this Notice, unless comments are received that will result in a contrary determination, or 40 days from the date a computer matching agreement is signed, whichever is later.

Comments deadline: June 30, 1997.

RHS (FmHA) Regulations

Housing Preservation Grant Program
7 C.F.R. Part 1944
62 Fed. Reg. 26,207-11 (May 13, 1997)

Summary: The Rural Housing Service (RHS), formerly the Rural Housing and Community Development Service (RHCDS), a successor agency to the Department of Agriculture's Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), is amending its Housing Preservation Grant regulations. The purpose is to allow replacement housing where the grantee has determined that the costs for repair and rehabilitation on the recipient's (individual homeowners only) existing housing are not economically feasible or practical. These revisions will bring the regulations into conformance with the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 amending the Housing Preservation Grant program, Section 533 of the Housing Act of 1949.

Effective date: June 12, 1997.

Rural Rental Housing Assistance and Processing Requests for Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Loans
Interim and Final Rules and Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Program
7 C.F.R. Parts 1930, 1944, 1951, and 1965
62 Fed. Reg. 25,061-71 (May 7, 1997)

Summary: The Rural Housing Service (RHS), a successor agency to the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), amends its regulations for the Rural Rental Housing (RRH) program to implement legislative reforms mandated by the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-180, enacted August 6, 1996. The following revisions are included in this rule: (1) prioritization of assistance; (2) assurances that the amount of assistance provided is no more than is necessary; (3) assurance that project transfers are in the best interest of the tenants and the government; (4) elimination of the occupancy surcharge; (5) changes to the equity loan program; and (6) implementation of penalties for equity skimming by project owners and managers. The intended result of these reforms is to improve the effectiveness of the Section 515 Rural Rental Housing program.

Effective date: May 7, 1997.

Comments deadline: Written comments must be received on or before July 7, 1997.

Processing Requests for Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Loans
Final Rule
7 C.F.R. Part 1944
62 Fed. Reg. 25,071-77 (May 7, 1997)

Summary: The Rural Housing Service (RHS), a successor agency to the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), amends its regulations for processing loan requests for Rural Rental Housing (RRH) assistance. This action is taken to improve loan processing procedures to better accomplish the program's purpose of providing rental housing to rural areas with the greatest need.

RHS has recognized the need to revise the manner in which Section 515 loan proposals are selected for processing to ensure that affordable rental housing reaches areas of greatest need. This resulted from internal reviews by the agency and reports from the General Accounting Office, the USDA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and the Surveys and Investigations Staff of the House Committee on Appropriations. In response to such findings, RHS published a proposed rule on January 17, 1996 (61 Fed. Reg. 1153), proposing changes to the manner in which loans were selected for funding and complied with statutory provisions of the Housing Act of 1949 at that time. In addition, other program enhancements were proposed to improve the quality of loan underwriting. Since publishing the proposed rule, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-180 (herein referred to as "the Act") was enacted on August 6, 1996. The Act amended the Housing Act of 1949 and revised the manner in which RHS selects loan proposals. The provisions of the Act conflicted with many of the revisions contained in the proposed rule. As a result, the THD is not implementing the changes affecting the priority point system which were initially proposed on January 17, 1996.

In a separate rulemaking document, described above, RHS is implementing the provisions of the Act. Those changes were effective upon publication.

This rulemaking document implements the other program enhancements proposed on January 17, 1996, that were not affected by the Act.

In a future rulemaking document, the comment period will be reopened for the proposed market study revisions (Exhibit A-8 of 7 C.F.R. Part 1944, Subpart E) only.

Effective date: The effective date of this final rule is June 6, 1997.

1. At http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs.
2. To order Notices and Handbooks from HUD, call (800) 767-7468 or fax (202) 708-2313.