News

On Tuesday, August 6, President Obama delivered a speech in Phoenix, Arizona detailing his plan for promoting a strong and stable housing market. The speech addressed several core principles but mainly focused on balancing housing policy to support both sustainable homeownership options and affordable rental opportunities.

On July 31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development (RD) sent letters notifying owners with Section 521 Rental Assistance (RA) contracts that expire in September that RA contracts cannot be renewed until fiscal year (FY) 2014 begins in October due in part to a shortage of FY 2013 RA funds.

North Dakota Housing Finance Authority (NDHFA) staff is in the process of developing a Draft 2014 Qualified Allocation Plan to be used in the administration of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program. If you have suggestions for changes to the existing plan, please provide your written comments by August 20, 2013. A draft 2014 Qualified Allocation Plan is expected to be ready for public comment by October 22, 2013.

The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) has sent the 2013 Maryland Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) and Multifamily Rental Financing Program Guide (Guide) to Governor Martin O’Malley for his signature. The final draft QAP reflects changes made in response to the comments received during the public comment period and public hearing for the third draft published on May 30, 2013.

HUD recently released a proposed rule to clarify and expand the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) obligations of HUD program participants in accordance with the Fair Housing Act. HUD is proposing this long overdue rule because the current practice of affirmatively furthering fair housing, which involves an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice and a certification that the grantee will affirmatively further fair housing, has not been as effective as envisioned.

Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) will have a public hearing at a public meeting on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 to review the proposed policy changes to the 2014 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP).

HUD’s director of Multifamily Development, Theodore Toon, recently issued a memo to provide guidance on Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and MAP Guide policy regarding age restrictions in FHA-insured housing.

Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner Carole Galante recently announced leadership changes in the Office of Multifamily Housing including the resignation of Marie Head from the role of Multifamily Deputy Assistant Secretary and the promotion of Ben Metcalf to replace Ms. Head.

HUD recently published the final rule (24 CFR Part 92) amending the HOME Investment Partnerships (HOME) Program regulations. These amendments represent the most significant changes to the HOME Program in 17 years. The overall goal of these changes was to provide participating jurisdictions (PJs) and their partners with regulatory guidance to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the HOME Program in the context of a more complex housing and community development environment.

NH&RA was please to welcome over 100 participants at the 2013 Summer Institute. All conference materials, Power Point presentations, relevant articles, reports, memos, etc. are available for download.

Florida Housing Finance Corporation will host a Housing Credit Allocation Process Workshop on July 30, 2013 at 1:00PM to solicit public comments concerning the distribution of the 2014 housing credits. Topics include proximity requirements in scoring, limited development areas, housing credit request amount tests, total development cost limitations, funding selection based off of county size, the 2014 QAP, and other discussions.

Nebraska Investment Finance Authority (NIFA) will hold a Focus Group Meeting to gather comments in preparation of creating the 2014 Qualified Allocation Plan.