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From: Claire Curry
email: mailto:clairec@justice4all.org
link: http://
date: 7/14/0 17:35
Date: 12/21/00
Time: 11:54:33 AM
Remote Name: 207.251.188.199
My client has been on a voucher for over 10 years living in the same 3 bedroom house with the rent staying the same all these years. The most recent voucher recertification period was for 8/1/99 to 8/1/00. They used the 2 bedroom voucher payment standard of $634, with $560 being the HAP amount to owner and $74 being the utility reimbursement to client (total utility allowance was $133). My client has no income. The clients children have now grown up and left, which she honestly reported to the HA back in 1998. The HA is just now getting around to figuring out that she is overhoused. HA sent her a notice (6/30) saying that her voucher payment to this landlord will cease on 7/31 and she will be issued a new 1 person voucher to use elsewhere. If she cannot find a place to move to prior to 8/1/00 they said she will have to pay the landlord the entire amount of rent herself. They gave her no notice of right to informal conference and no notice of their exceptions to unit size rules, so we have some procedural arguments. She is worried (and rightly so), that she will not be able to find a landlord to accept her 1 bedroom voucher, and certainly not before 8/1/00. The 1 bedroom payment standard is now $508. Landlord is not interested in reducing the rent, and really looking forward to doing some renovations and renting the house on the private market.
24 CFR 982.403(b) seems to give some good protections to certificate holders who are overhoused, (i.e. the PHA along with the family is under an obligation to try and find an alternative acceptable unit, the PHA must notify the family that exceptions to the subsidy standards may be granted and what those exceptions are, and IF an acceptable unit is available for rental by the family, then the PHA must terminate the HAP contract), but these provisions expressly apply only to certificate holders. Are there any comparable protections for voucher holders? If they exist I haven't been able to find them. 982.403 is titled 'Terminating HAP contract when uit is too small', and 403(a) is titled 'Violations of HQS space standards'. Can these 2 provisions be read to apply to voucher holders who are overhoused, and does it require that the PHA must terminate only IF an acceptable unit is available? Does anybody know any tricks for having a zero income tenant make up the excess over the maximum subsidy that the HA will pay for a 1 person HH? She has some medical problems, but nothing that we can show requires any accomodation and nothing that seems to require a live in aid.
Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Claire