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.

A new report from the National Leased Housing Association warns, “in the long run, the negative impacts on housing providers, if not addressed, will result in lower housing supply, reduced renter mobility and foregone benefits to low- and moderate-income communities. However, if housing providers can recover financially and restore investments in new housing developments, including affordable housing, the industry can play an important role in the economic recovery from COVID-19.”

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.

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Housing and Infrastructure Project released federal policy recommendations designed to dramatically reduce the number of working families with destabilizing rent burdens and at risk of eviction, minimize the number of people experiencing homelessness, and prevent further spread of COVID-19.

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 U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) awarded 397 Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) $204.1 million in awards.

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).