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HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 3.2.2.1 Overview

Some PHAs and owners of HUD-assisted properties have attempted to restrict the kinds and numbers of guests that a tenant may have or to prohibit certain non-residents from being present. These policies include management requirements for prior approval of, or other restrictions on, overnight guests, and policies prohibiting tenants from having certain individuals as guests or invitees.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 9.2.2 Resident Notice and Comment

What is Notice and Comment? The notice-and-comment process requires PHAs to provide public housing residents notice of a PHA’s contemplated action and an opportunity for the residents to comment on the proposed action. However, depending on the type of action considered by the PHA, the form of the notice and comment can vary. For example, some rules require a specific notice period and others specifically mandate the PHA to consider the comments.11

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 9.2.3 Resident Councils

PHAs should encourage the formation of resident councils by informing tenants of the benefits of having resident organizations. The benefits of having a duly-elected resident council include the role that resident councils play in selecting members to the Resident Advisory Board (RAB), the possibility that the PHA will make a unit available for tenant participation activities, and the role that resident organizations have in deciding how to use the funds collected from allocating $25 per occupied unit per year.25

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 9.2.4 Funding and In-Kind Support for Resident Participation

The Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act provides that an eligible use of operating subsidy funds for public housing includes the cost of tenant management and tenant participation in management and policy making.67 PHAs that receive operating subsidies are required to expend, at a minimum, $25 per occupied unit each year for resident participation activities.68 HUD makes these funds available to PHAs as an add-on expense to the federal operating subsidies.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 9.5.2 Resident Notice and Comment

When the Requirements Apply. The notice-and-comment regulation applies to most of the privately owned, HUD-subsidized and assisted multifamily housing stock.129 Residents are entitled to notice and comment in several situations before project owners take any action adverse to them.130 The same statute that acknowledges the importance of resident participation and protects tenant organizations also requires that residents be given notice and an opportunity to comment

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 9.5.3 Resident Organizations

The tenant participation rule for multifamily housing projects represents an important milestone in recognizing fundamental tenant rights.140 The rule provides that tenants residing in properties covered by the regulations141 “have the right to establish and operate a tenant organization.”142 A legitimate tenant organization is defined as one that “meets regularly, operates democratically, is representative of all residents in the development

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 12.3.1 Overview

HUD provides both subsidized mortgages and rental assistance contracts to support affordable housing.337 Units can be lost from the remaining HUD-subsidized mortgage insurance programs for three primary reasons. Some units are threatened by owners’ proposed conversion to market-rate use, through a mortgage prepayment prior to the end of the restricted use period, or by the maturity of the mortgage.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 12.3.2.1 Introduction

Prepayment of the HUD-insured mortgage terminates the rent and occupancy restrictions contained in the regulatory agreement prior to the expiration of the full mortgage term. This could result in significant tenant rent increases. This section provides background on mortgage prepayments and briefly reviews the applicable laws and policies. The materials in the Appendix at the end of this chapter also provide additional resources regarding prepayment requests.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 12.3.2.2 Background

In the 1960s, beginning with the Section 221(d)(3) Below-Market Interest Rate (BMIR) and Section 236 interest subsidy programs, the federal government began utilizing private ownership as a way to substantially increase the supply of subsidized multifamily housing for lower-income families.340 The subsidy mechanism for this purpose was a federally guaranteed loan341 with a reduced or subsidized interest rate, which enabled housing to be provided at slightly below-market rents.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 4.5.4 Changes in Household Composition

Recertifications also include changes in family composition, because they may affect both the determination of family annual and adjusted income for purposes of determining rent.632 Changes in family composition at regular recertification may also affect the subsidy paid under the PHA’s subsidy standards for the Voucher program,633 and the appropriate unit size for public housing634 and Project-Based Section 8 programs.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 4.6.1 Overview

It is not uncommon for a family’s circumstances to change during the year from those that were anticipated at the regular recertification. Children are born or other family members join or depart the household, family members gain or lose employment, wages change and anticipated medical expenses fluctuate.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 4.3.1 Overview

In order to calculate tenant rent for housing programs using income-based rents, the first step is to determine “annual income.”237 Common issues across programs include whether and how annual income can be projected, and whether certain assistance to the household can be considered as income. A household that is not receiving all of the income anticipated or that has sporadic income can raise special concerns. Additional questions include how to treat the income of absent household members, net family assets and lump-sum awards.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 4.3.3 Anticipated Income, Including Temporary and Fluctuating Income

The regulations define income to include only anticipated income.277 Anticipated income is projected either by annualizing current income, and providing for interim recertification as needed, or by using available information to calculate annual income based on anticipated changes through the year.278 A PHA or owner can use a family’s income determination made for purposes of other Federal means-tested assistance programs.279