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From: Barbara Sard
email: mailto:sard@gis.net
link: http://
date: 9/8/0 15:47
Date: 12/21/00
Time: 12:14:33 PM
Remote Name: 207.251.188.199
This message was written neutrally for the Center on Budget's housing/welfare listserve. Legal Services advocates may wish to comment on the omission of tenants with disabilities in project-based sec. 8 developments from the benefit of the proposed expansion of the earnings disregard policy. I recommend that the public housing/voucher group discuss in the 9/21 call how to respond to HUD's invitation of comments on whether the mandatory earnings disregard should be extended to all Section 8 tenants.
The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a notice for public comment on Aug. 21, 2000 that may be of great interest to agencies and advocates that are concerned about assisting persons with disabilities who live in all types of federally-assisted housing to enter the workforce. The proposed changes would also assist families with child care expenses (regardless of disability). The comment deadline is October 20, 2000. The notice also invites comment on the question of whether HUD should expand the current policy that disregards earnings of certain public housing tenants in calculating their rental obligation to Section 8 tenants, regardless of disability.
The proposed rule is briefly described below. To be brief, only the major aspects of the proposed changes are stated here. Interested persons may obtain a copy of the proposed rule at www.hudclips.org under "FR Notices Seeking Public Comment." The docket number is FR-4608-P-01; the notice is currently # 14 on this list, Determining Adjusted Income in HUD Programs Serving Persons With Disabilities.
HUD has proposed to extend current rules that require certain deductions from income in determining adjusted income and calculating rent in the public housing and Section 8 programs to additional HUD-assisted housing programs. The additional programs that would be covered include: the Shelter Plus Care and the Supportive Housing Programs under the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act; the 202 and 811 programs for the elderly and disabled, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program, and certain others.
All households in the newly covered programs would be entitled to deduct "reasonable child care expense necessary to enable a member of the family to be employed or to further his or her education." In addition, households would be able to deduct a portion of expenses for attendant care and auxiliary apparatus for any member of the family who is a person with disabilities, if necessary to enable any member of the family to be employed. This applies to expenses necessary for a person with disabilities to work, as well as expenses for the care of a disabled child or other adult in the household that enables another family member to work. Elderly or disabled families would also be able to deduct a portion of unreimbursed medical expenses. This is limited to households in which the head, spouse or sole member is age 62 or older or a person with disabilities. It does not apply to other families with a disabled child.
Second, HUD has proposed to extend the current policy requiring the disregard of earnings of certain public housing tenants (including but not limited to persons with disabilities) to disabled families in four additional programs: the Section 8 Voucher Program, the McKinney Supportive Housing Program, the HOME Investment Partnerships Program and the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program. Households would qualify for the disregard if the head, spouse or sole member is a person with disabilities who has gone to work or increased his or her earnings after being largely unemployed for the previous year, while participating in an economic self-sufficiency or other job training program, or within six months of receiving certain benefits under the TANF or Welfare-to-Work programs. For a qualified household, all of the increased earnings are disregarded in determining rent for 12 months. In the second 12-month period, half of the rent increase otherwise due is phased in.
HUD has also invited the public to comment on whether this special two-year phased disregard of earnings in determining rent should apply to the project-based Section 8 program, and to families other than those with disabilities in the tenant-based Section 8 program. Because a family's rent obligation in the Section 8 programs is generally 30 percent of adjusted income, disregarding all of an individual's earnings for 12 months is a savings to the family of $3 for every $10 of earnings during that period; the second year of the disregard is a savings of half that amount. Protection against an immediate rent increase when earnings increase may encourage more families to work or make the initial expenses of work easier for them to bear. No research is available on the effect of the earnings disregard policies in the public housing program. Research in welfare programs has shown that generous earnings disregard policies do elicit greater employment, but the policies still entail additional costs.
Among the issues to consider in commenting on the question of whether the earnings disregard should be expanded to the Section 8 programs is what trade-offs may result and their relative value. The cost of expanding this earnings disregard policy to the Section 8 programs would be borne by the federal government, not the PHAs or owners. The cost of this policy change, however, may diminish the availability of funds to expand the number of families participating in the programs or to make other improvements in the programs.