National Housing Law Project Housing Law Bulletin

The following are housing-related regulations and Notices that HUD and the Department of Agriculture have recently issued. For the most part, the summaries are taken directly from HUD's and USDA's summary of the regulation in the Federal Register. The Notice summaries are taken from each Notice's introductory paragraphs.

Copies of the cited HUD 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 spot on the World Wide Web,¹ (3) bound volumes of the Federal Register, (4) HUD Clips,² and (5) HUD.³ Citations are included with each document to help you secure copies.

The USDA website for the Rural Housing Service is: http//www.rurdev.usda.gov/rhs/index.html.

HUD REGULATIONS

Uniform Physical Condition Standards and Physical Inspection Requirements for Certain HUD Housing; Proposed Rule 24 C.F.R. Parts 880, 881, 882, 883, 884, 886, 891, 965, and 983 63 Fed. Reg. 35,650-35,657  (June 30, 1998)
Summary: This proposed rule would establish uniform physical condition standards for housing assisted under certain HUD programs. These standards are intended to ensure that such housing is decent, safe, sanitary and in good repair. HUD's Section 8 housing, public housing, HUD-insured multifamily housing, and other HUD-assisted housing (collectively, HUD housing) currently must meet certain standards and must undergo an annual physical inspection to determine that it qualifies as decent, safe, sanitary and in good repair. However, the description or components of what constitutes acceptable physical housing quality, and the physical inspection procedures by which the standards are determined to be met, vary among the housing programs. To the extent possible, HUD believes that its assisted housing should be subject to uniform physical standards and inspection procedures, regardless of the source of the subsidy or assistance. Therefore, this rule proposes that certain HUD housing must meet uniform physical condition standards to ensure that it is decent, safe, sanitary and in good repair, and goes on to generally describe the new physical inspection procedures to determine conformity with such standards. It would not change the requirement for annual physical inspections currently found in the covered HUD programs. Additionally, it would not affect the existing requirements in each covered HUD program regarding which entity is responsible for conducting the physical inspection of the program.
Comments due: July 30, 1998.

Uniform Financial Reporting Standards for HUD Housing Programs; Proposed Rule 24 C.F.R. Parts 5,  200, 236, 266, 880, 886, 982 63 Fed. Reg. 35,662-35, 669 (June 30, 1998)
Summary: This rule would establish uniform annual financial reporting standards for HUD's public housing, Section 8 and multifamily insured housing programs. The rule would require public housing agencies and project owners of HUD-assisted housing to submit electronically to HUD, on an annual basis, certain financial information in a standardized format. Electronic submission is necessary because the manual submission of annual financial information to HUD has become a significant administrative burden to housing authorities, project owners, and mortgagees, as well as to HUD.

This rule would also require that the annual financial information submitted to HUD be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. HUD is developing the format and the content of the financial information to be reported annually.

The objective of this rule is to standardize the annual financial information submission process and, through standardization, bring consistency to the evaluation of the financial condition of housing assisted under the HUD programs.
Comments due: July 30, 1998.

Public Housing Assessment System; Proposed Rule 24 C.F.R. Part 901 63 Fed. Reg. 35,672-35,692 (June 30, 1998)
Summary: This proposed rule establishes an entirely new system for the assessment of public housing in the United States. The nation's public housing system houses 1.2 million families in 20,000 projects across the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the United States Virgin Islands, operated by 3,400 public housing agencies.

The purpose of the new Public Housing Assessment System is to enhance public trust by creating a comprehensive management tool that effectively and fairly measures a public housing agency's (PHA's) performance based on standards that are objective, uniform and verifiable, and proves real rewards for high performers and consequences for poor performers.

The major components of the new system include:

• The first ever assessment of the physical condition, financial health, and resident services in public housing. For the first time, the physical condition of every project in the nation's public housing inventory will be inspected on a regular basis, using uniform standards and procedures, to ensure that residents receive decent, safe, and sanitary housing.
• The first ever assessment of the financial condition of every public housing agency, using generally accepted accounting principles.
• The first ever measurement of resident satisfaction with public housing services, to be included in HUD's assessment of public housing management.

The rule provides for the establishment of a Troubled Agency Recovery Center to which public housing agencies that perform poorly on the above factors will be referred.

The rule also provides for the establishment of an Enforcement Center and Receivership for agencies that fail to improve performance. Public housing agencies that fail to show significant improvement within a year will be automatically referred to a new HUD Enforcement Center that will institute proceedings for judicial receivership to remove failed agency management.

The new assessment system was developed with extensive discussion and consultation with PHA officials, officials from PHA representative organizations, representatives of public housing resident groups, experts in the fields of finance and audit and the physical inspection of properties, and other interested articles such as housing advocacy groups and local government representatives. The consultation and discussions with PHA agency officials and representative groups will continue through the final rulemaking process and in the implementation of this new system.
Comments due: July 30, 1998.

HUD Federal Register Notices

Section 8 Certificate and Voucher Programs Conforming Rule; Correction 63 Fed. Reg. 31,624
(June 10, 1998)
Summary: This document contains corrections to the final rule that was published April 30, 1998 (63 Fed. Reg. 23,826). That final rule combined and conformed the provisions of the Section 8 certificate and voucher programs and made some regulatory streamlining changes. See 28 HOUS. L. BULL. 85 (May 1998).

As published, the final rule contains three errors that may prove to be misleading and is in need of clarification. The first error is the omission of the definition of "Housing Quality Standards" from Section 982.4. The definition as found in the rule before the revision is restored in this document.

The second error is the failure to include the term "near-elderly" in a discussion in Section 982.316 concerning the family composition of a family eligible to seek approval of a live-in aide. Such a family, as described at 24 C.F.R. § 5.403, may include near-elderly persons without either elderly persons or disabled persons. The omission of that term in this rule would create confusion, so it is added to Section 982.316 in this document.

The third error is that the statement of how to calculate the amount of the monthly housing assistance payment for a manufactured (mobile) home space in Section 982.623 contains a typographical error that cites an incorrect paragraph reference. This document corrects the reference.
Effective date: June 10, 1998.

Notices of Funding Availability for Community
Planning and Development, Public and Indian
Housing, and Lead Hazard Control Programs:
Introduction 63 Fed. Reg. 29,824-29,826 (June 1, 1998)
Summary: HUD publishes its remaining Notices announcing the availability of funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 1998. The Notices announce the availability of approximately $188.5 million in HUD program funds covering seven programs operated and managed by the following HUD offices: Community Planning and Development (CPD), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Public and Indian Housing (PIH), and the Office of Lead Hazard Control (OLHC). The Notices are published separately from the three SuperNOFAs published on March 31, 1998, and April 30, 1998, due to the distinctive application selection procedures used by these programs. This document introduced the HUD Notices being published. The individual Notices contain a description of the specific programs for which funding is made available and the procedures and requirements that are applicable to each program.

Other Federal Register Notices

Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property
Acquisition Regulations for Federal and Federally
Assisted Programs 63 Fed. Reg. 32,175-32,179
(June 12, 1998)
Summary: This proposal would implement several amendments to the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act (Uniform Act), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4601-4655, that were made by Pub. L. No. 105-117, enacted on November 21, 1997. Those amendments provide that an undocumented immigrant not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible to receive relocation payments or any other assistance provided under the Uniform Act, unless such ineligibility would result in exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to that person's spouse, parent, or child, and such spouse, parent, or child is a citizen or an alien admitted as a permanent resident. The amendment directs the lead agency (the Federal Highway Administration) to promulgate implementing regulations within one year of their enactment. If promulgated, this rule would apply to the Uniform Act activities of all federal departments and agencies that are covered by the Act.
Comment deadline: August 11, 1998.

HUD Notices

Processing Public Housing Agency (PHA) Applications for Section 8 Rental Vouchers and Certificates for
Non-Elderly Disabled Families in Connection with Certain Section 8 Project-Based Developments and
Certain Section 202, Section 221(d)(3), and Section 236 Developments, NOFA FR-4359, Dated April 30, 1998 Notice 98-33 (HUD) June 16, 1998
Summary: The Notice attaches an Application Review Checklist for rating PHA applications for FY 1998 funding for Section 8 rental vouchers and certificates for non-elderly disabled families in connection with the establishment of preferences for the admission of elderly families in connection with the establishment of preferences for the admission of elderly families to certain Section 8 project-based developments and certain Section 202, Section 221(d)(3) and Section 236 developments. The checklist includes two parts: an initial list of screening criteria that a PHA's application must pass in order to be eligible for further processing (Part 1), and an additional list of screening criteria to be used (for reviewing only those applications having passed the initial screening criteria) to determine if a housing agency's application is approvable (Part 2). The Office of Public Housing in the local HUD Field Office HUBs and local HUD Field Office Program Centers must review each PHA application, arrive at a determination of approvability, and promptly advise Headquarters of each approvable application. n

¹  At http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs.
²  At http://www.hudclips.org/cgi/index.cgi.
³  To order Notices and Handbooks from HUD, call (800) 767-7468 or fax (202) 708-2313.