Recent settlements in Nevada and California highlight the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) strengthened enforcement authority under the latest iteration of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). According to HUD, the two settlements put housing providers "on notice" to understand and comply with the law or face serious consequences.

HAI Group is a leading sponsor of the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation (PAHRC), a nonprofit that researches the impact that affordable homes bring to families and communities. In this guest blog, Kelly McElwain, PAHRC’s industry intelligence and research manager, explains how a recent federal program can be leveraged to address housing needs.

Despite an estimated shortage of 7.3 million rental homes affordable and available to extremely low-income families, public housing authorities (PHAs) nationwide have not received congressional funding to build new deeply affordable housing in their communities in decades. PHAs’ hands became even more tied after Congress passed the Faircloth Amendment, which capped PHA public housing stock at the number of public housing units they operated as of October 1, 1999 (known as their ‘Faircloth Authority’). This created a de facto ban on building new public housing.

When a property owner participating in a federal voucher program fails to meet unit health and safety obligations, the public housing agency (PHA) administering the program must step in to enforce compliance or face potentially serious consequences. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) this week announced “substantive changes” to a portion of its Section 8 Renewal Policy Guidebook to streamline project-based rental assistance contract renewals.