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HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.1.3 General Purpose

The grievance procedure is designed to improve management–tenant relationships in public housing and promote an improved housing environment, and to avoid costly and divisive litigation by channeling disputes into an informal and relatively non-adversarial administrative process that provides aggrieved tenants with most of the essential elements of due process.14 At a minimum, the procedure must enable tenants to mitigate the damage suffered from mistakes or from arbitrary or abusive management practices.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.2.1 Overview

The grievance procedure is designed to resolve individual tenant complaints. A tenant can use the grievance process when that tenant has an individual dispute concerning a PHA action or non-action involving either the tenant’s lease or any PHA regulation that adversely affects the tenant’s rights, duties, welfare, or status,15 and is not otherwise excluded from the grievance procedure. These threshold requirements are discussed below.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.2.2 Only Available to Tenants

To bring a public housing grievance, a person must be a “tenant;” this includes: (1) the adult person (or persons) who resides in the public housing unit and who executed the lease as lessee; or (2) where there is no such person, the person who resides in the unit and is the remaining head of household.16 Note that a tenant is generally affected by an adverse PHA decision that directly concerns another person associated with a household, such as a live-in aide or a person seeking to join the residence, and thus may grieve a decision excluding o

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.2.6 Exceptions

A public housing resident’s right to a grievance is subject to certain exceptions. A PHA need not provide the grievance procedure in evictions based upon certain types of criminal activity.31 In addition, tenants are not entitled to a grievance procedure to resolve disputes between tenants (and not involving the PHA) or to address class grievances and policy changes.32 Each exception is discussed below.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.3.1 Overview

Statutes and regulations require PHAs to incorporate specific resident protections into every grievance procedure and administer them properly. Despite these mandates, some PHAs may simply fail to adopt a grievance procedure; others may fail to use it as required by law.50 Other PHAs may be plagued with bad faith administration or inherent process deficiencies.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.3.4.1 Overview

A tenant first presents a grievance to the PHA for possible informal settlement.66 The resident must personally present the grievance, either orally or in writing, to the PHA or the project office.67 A failure to present the grievance for informal settlement may preclude obtaining a hearing.68 To avoid any dispute as to whether the grievance was presented to the PHA, advocates should encourage the resident to submit a written grievance and hearing reques

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.3.4.2 Timely Written Request with Reasons

If the informal conference fails to produce a settlement, the resident may pursue a hearing. The PHA must notify the resident of this right and the procedure for obtaining a hearing in the written summary of the informal conference.79 While some PHAs may provide the hearing automatically, a resident should consider submitting a written request anyway. Submitting a request avoids any issue over whether a hearing was timely requested, and may provide another opportunity for negotiation.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.3.4.5 Right to Representation

The resident has an unqualified right to be represented by counsel or any other person chosen as a representative and to have the representative make statements on the resident’s behalf.87 It is also the tenant’s right to designate a contact person and the PHA’s obligation to communicate with the designated contact person.88 Advocates should encourage the PHA to provide referrals to free or low-cost legal services in its adopted grievance procedure and on its general grievance notices and request fo

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.3.4.8 The Grievance Hearing Decision

The hearing officer or panel must prepare a written decision within a reasonable time after the hearing.122 Copies of the decision must be sent to both parties.123 The PHA must retain a copy of the decision in the tenant’s folder.124 The PHA must also maintain a log of all grievance hearing decisions and make that log available upon request of a hearing officer, a prospective complainant, or a prospective complainant’s representative.

HUD Housing Programs: Tenants’ Rights (The Green Book): 10.2.5.3 Implementing the Grievance Procedure

After adoption of the procedure, residents should consider other steps to ensure successful implementation of the grievance process. To make the procedure useful, resident organizations and their legal advocates should encourage the PHA to conduct training workshops for residents, PHA personnel, hearing officers, and panel members. Residents should participate in the planning and conduct of these workshops to ensure that they reflect the needs and concerns of both parties.