Skip to main content

Search

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

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 4.3.7 Welfare Sanctions and Imputed Income (Public Housing and Section 8 Tenant-Based Vouchers)

For public housing and Section 8 Tenant-Based Vouchers, federal statute requires that some welfare income that is not actually “received” be imputed as income if the family’s assistance is reduced because of any failure of any family member to comply with the conditions of the assistance requiring participation in an economic self-sufficiency program or work requirements.338 However, a PHA may not refuse a requested rent reduction based on reduced welfare income until it receives specific written notice from the welfare agency verifying tha

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 4.3.8.1 Overview

Not all amounts of money a family receives are considered “income” for rent calculation purposes, even if they might be income under normal accounting principles. Applicable rules may exclude certain funds received from specific sources from household income used for rent calculation. Additionally, some or all of certain earned income may be excluded for a period of time.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 12.6.1 Overview

When HUD-supported project-based units are lost, HUD ordinarily provides tenant-based assistance to replace the public housing or project-based assistance previously provided. In some situations, for example public housing conversions or agency initiated terminations of Project-Based Section 8 contracts, the replacement assistance takes the form of tenant protection Vouchers. These are Housing Choice Vouchers provided to eligible tenants by the PHA, which enable the family to search for, and hopefully lease, alternative affordable housing.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 12.6.3 Enhanced Vouchers

If an owner decides to opt-out of the Project-Based Section 8 contract or prepay an unrestricted HUD-subsidized mortgage, most previously assisted or subsidized tenants are eligible to receive Enhanced Vouchers as replacement assistance.656 Congress has also authorized Enhanced Vouchers for certain at-risk unassisted tenants in properties with expiring mortgages or use restrictions.657 These special Vouchers have enhanced payment standards if necessary, as well as a “right to remain” fea