Federal / Agency News

The Health@Home webinar series consists of four webinars that provide affordable housing rehabilitation specialists and program managers with information on integrating healthy housing techniques into their rehabilitation projects and best practices from practitioners who have successfully implemented these techniques.

In a recent issue of Health Affairs focusing on investments in social determinants of health, a new study examined how renovations of a property in Queens, NY that converted through RAD may improve the health of public housing residents.

HUD released the full report, “Examining the Effects of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) on Children Living in Public Housing in Fresno, California,” which assessed outcomes and the well-being of children living in developments that have undergone rehab and conversion under RAD.

Last week the House of Representatives passed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package (H.R. 2), which includes several housing provisions. A summary of the housing provisions in the bill can be found here. The measure passed by a vote of 233 to 188, with three Republicans crossing party lines to support it and two Democrats breaking […]

On June 7, 2020 the House Appropriations Committee released its draft fiscal year 2021 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies funding bill. The measure was adopted by the Subcommittee on July 8, 2020.  The measure heads next to the Full Committee for an additional markup.  The bill provides a total of $50.6 billion […]

On July 1, 2020, HUD published Housing Notice (2020-7), Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Eviction Moratorium that extends the moratorium on evictions for all HUD-insured or HUD-held mortgages while under forbearance, and also provides guidance on tenant protections for multifamily properties not subject to forbearance and those with HUD-assisted units.

To encourage owners of multifamily properties to provide flexibilities to residents who may be struggling financially as a result of COVID-19, HUD has published a new brochure with updated guidance for multifamily property owners on promoting housing stability during the pandemic.

A divided Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) recently ruled in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), that restrictions on the removal of the CFPB director are unconstitutional. Under the law that created the CFPB, the director can be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” This decision will likely impact the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has a similar structure as the CFPB and has a challenge pending in court related to its structure. The directors of the CFPB and the FHFA will likely no longer be independent regulatory agencies, but rather parts of any presidential administration that can be fired at will.

The House of Representatives passed the Emergency Housing Protections and Relief Act of 2020 (H.R. 7301) to provide relief for homeowners, renters, landlords and people experiencing homelessness amidst the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The provisions of this bill were largely included in the HEROES Act as passed by the House in May, which has yet to be voted on in the Senate.

In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Internal Revenue Service today issued Notice 2020-53 to provide tax relief to issuers, operators, owners, and tenants of qualified low-income housing projects or qualified residential rental projects financed with exempt facility bonds, and state agencies that have jurisdiction over these projects.

The Internal Revenue Service issued a proposed rule on the compliance-monitoring duties of state agencies for purposes of the low-income housing credit. The proposed regulations relax the minimum compliance-monitoring sampling requirement for purposes of physical inspections and low-income certification review, providing flexibility and reduced burdens with respect to the requirements set forth in the final regulations published on February 26, 2019.

The House of Representatives voted along party lines to pass a resolution of disapproval to nullify the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s new rule on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The Congressional Review Act of 1996 gives Congress the power to rescind administration rules within 60 calendar days. The bill (H.J. Res 90) would need to be passed by the Senate (with a simple majority) and be signed by the President, both of which seem unlikely to happen.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) focuses on rental housing from 2001 through 2017 and analyzes the share of households that rent, the affordability of rental housing and rental housing conditions. In 2017, almost 7 million more households rented their homes than in 2001, which brought the share of households that rent from an estimated 34 percent to 36 percent.