Feature Articles
October 16, 2018
According to federal reports issued in June 2018, HUD lacks adequate oversight of lead-based paint in the public housing and Housing Choice Voucher programs. The reports, issued by the HUD Office of Inspector General and U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), described disjointed...
October 16, 2018
Explosive growth in ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft are attracting more and more drivers. These drivers earn extra income with the benefit of working flexible hours. According to recent research by JPMorgan Chase Institute, from late 2013 to this spring, the number of households...
September 24, 2018
Each week, gun-related violence makes headlines, followed shortly by hotly contested debates on gun control. The right to bear arms as defined by the U.S. Constitution, as well as by many state constitutions, has and remains an issue that divides individuals, businesses, communities, and...
September 12, 2018
As a site owner or manager, you must be concerned about your liability for sexual harassment. Federal fair housing law protects residents from sexual harassment at your site. A resident can sue you if she thinks that you or any employee at your site sexually harassed her. Sexual harassment can...
September 12, 2018
HUD requires managers to cover a long list of topics during the certification meetings. At these times, it’s important that households bring certain key documents with them to the certification interview. These are documents containing the information you need to process the initial...
August 14, 2018
Occasionally, a resident may ask you what steps need to be taken to allow a professional caregiver on site to assist him or her with activities of daily living. Typical duties of a caregiver might include taking care of someone who has a chronic illness or disease; managing medications or...
August 14, 2018
The Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016 (HOTMA) amended an income limitation on public housing tenancy for families, otherwise referred to as an “over-income” limit. After commencing a notice regarding its implementation of HOTMA in 2016, HUD recently published a...
July 19, 2018
Every manager’s worst nightmare is a violent crime against a resident at his assisted housing site. And compounding the tragedy of the crime is the risk of liability. You could be held liable for the crime if you knew your residents were at risk of that type of crime. In legal terms, the...
July 19, 2018
According to recently issued RHIIP ListServ Posting #411, HUD has been advised that a number of owners/agents are encountering old or missing data when attempting to view EIV reports for some or all of their sites. If you’re encountering these issues, for compliance monitoring purposes,...
July 19, 2018
In 2012, as part of the FY 2012 HUD Appropriations Act, Congress authorized the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) to help preserve and improve low-income housing. Administered by HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs, RAD allows public housing agencies (PHAs) and owners of...
June 13, 2018
HUD recently suspended the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. This rule was a 2015 regulation that required any community receiving HUD development block-grant funding to routinely identify instances of racial segregation and provide solutions to counter them. It was intended to fulfill...
June 13, 2018
If your site needs non-routine maintenance and repair work, you must decide between either using your own staff or hiring outside contractors. Some managers think that it’s always cheaper to use their site staff, but that’s not necessarily so. There are costs associated with using...
