Federal / Agency News

After 28 years of federal service working on the American Housing Survey (AHS), Dav Vandenbroucke’s last working day will be Wednesday, October 14. Vandenbroucke was the senior economist at HUD and leaves the AHS in the capable hands of George Carter and Portia Hemphill.

HUD published the Resident Declaration Form required by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium in 20 different languages: Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Italian, Khmer, Korea, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Spanish (Puerto Rican), Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) published Revenue Procedure 2020-42 announcing $3,105,001 of unused LIHTCs allocated from the national pool to 33 qualified states for calendar year 2020.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Development’s (RD) Office Multifamily Housing (MFH) announced that, effective October 11, 2020, Becki Meyer, Byron Waters, Karissa Stiers and Laurie Warzinski will become the first Regional directors of MFH’s Field Operations Division.

On September 29, House Democrats released a scaled down COVID-19 relief proposal, calling it an updated Heroes Act, with a price tag of $2.2 trillion. The bill is nearly $1 trillion less than the earlier version and includes new relief for the airline, restaurant and other hardest-hit industries, as well as additional funds to support education and childcare. Despite the lower price tag, negotiations between the House, White House and Senate are not progressing, and it seems unlikely that they will reach agreement to enact further large-scale relief before the election.

A new NCSHA report said that as of September 14, between 10 and 14 million renter households were behind on rent between $12 and $17 billion. The households are home to 23 to 24 million people. The overdue rents will grow to between $25 and $34 billion when the CDC eviction moratorium ends on December 31.

HUD published a final rule on its implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standard, which will become effective October 24. HUD’s office of Policy Development and Research issued a notice designating Difficult Development Areas (DDAs) and Qualified Census Tracts (QCTs) for 2021 LIHTC properties.

The calendar year (CY) 2020 New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) notice of allocation availability (NOAA) references a new requirement for applicants to complete and save their NMTC application registration within the Awards Management Information System (AMIS) by October 9 at 5 p.m. ET.

For the past ten years, the American Housing Survey (AHS) has been under the stewardship of Dr. Shawn Bucholtz. Shawn left HUD to become the chief data officer at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

Proceeds from the underlying loans are used to finance rental properties in 28 states that serve low- to very low-income residents. Out of approximately 4,500 rental units, about 2,900 are home to people with very low incomes who make 50 percent or less of the area median income.

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in repose at the Supreme Court today and tomorrow and lie in state in the Capitol on Friday, the first woman to ever receive the honor. The passing of Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) Justice Ginsburg dramatically changes the legislative outlook for the remainder of 2020.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) unanimously approved the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) reform. The ANPR uses a data-driven approach and solicits feedback in several areas. Comments are due 120 days after official publication in the Federal Register. NH&RA is still reviewing the ANPR with plans to submit comments and encourages our members to do so as well.