HUD

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that 17 communities across the country have been awarded $4.95 million in Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants. HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative promotes a comprehensive approach to transforming distressed areas of concentrated poverty into viable and sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods.

HUD has issued a call for entries for the 2013 Housing & Community Design Awards. The awards, which are co-sponsored by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the HUD Office of the Secretary, recognize excellence in affordable housing, community-based design, participatory design, and accessibility.

HUD has issued a Notice of Intent to conduct an Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing program in the Baltimore, Maryland Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). The Agency will make available certain incentives to developers in order to encourage the production and availability of more affordable housing units in “communities of opportunity,” as defined in the Thompson vs. HUD settlement, in the Baltimore SMSA.

HUD has published its final Fair Market Rents (FMRs) for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program and any other programs requiring their use for Fiscal Year 2013. The FY 2013 FMRs are based on using 5-year, 2006-2010 data collected by the American Community Survey (ACS).

HUD recently issued Housing Notice 2012-14 which offered guidance on use of “New Regulation” Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) Contracts Residual Receipts to offset Project-Based Section 8 Housing Assistance Payments.

The US House of Representatives recently passed a continuing resolution (CR) (HJ Res 117) on September 13, 2012 by a vote of 329-91, followed by passage in the Senate by a vote of 62-30 on September 22, 2012. The CR effectively delays final decisions for fiscal year (FY) 2013 spending until after the elections and will allow, if necessary, the Federal government to run uninterrupted through March 27, 2013 until a new Congress takes office.

HUD has issued Notice H 2012-18 and H 2012-19 extending an original Notice H 2010-26 which established policy and procedures for the review of requests to subordinate Section 202 direct loans in cases where refinancing these loans is not feasible.

HUD has issued a notices designating its 2013 “Difficult Development Areas” (DDAs) for purposes of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. HUD makes DDA designations annually.

On March 8, 2012, at 77 FR 14029, HUD published in the Federal Register a notice announcing HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program and the publication of PIH Notice 2012-18 on the RAD Website.

HUD has announced the expansion of its FHA Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) Pilot program by increasing the number of participating HUD Hub Processing Offices by five and to make the pilot available to LIHTC projects in all parts of the country. The added HUD offices are in Atlanta, Denver, Fort Worth, San Francisco, and Seattle. They join the original participating Hub Offices in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

HUD has opened the competitive application period for conversions under the first component of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Vulnerable Veterans Housing Reform Act of 2012 (HR 6361) which would exclude in-home disability care payments from veterans’ income calculations for some HUD housing programs.