Department of Housing and Urban Development January 2017 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 30 days of public comment.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

On December 14, 2016, HUD published a final rule implementing changes to HUD's housing counseling statute to improve the effectiveness of housing counseling in HUD programs by, among other things: Establishing the Office of Housing Counseling and giving this office the authority over the establishment, coordination, and administration of all regulations, requirements, standards, and performance measures under programs and laws administered by HUD that relate to housing counseling; requiring that organizations providing housing counseling required under or in connection with HUD programs be approved to participate in the Housing Counseling Program (Housing Counseling Agencies, or HCAs) and have all individuals providing such housing counseling certified by HUD as competent to provide such services; prohibiting the distribution of housing counseling grant funds awarded to agencies participating in HUD's Housing Counseling Program that are found in violation of Federal election laws or that have employees found in violation of Federal election laws; and requiring the reimbursement to HUD of housing counseling grant funds that HUD finds were misused. After publication, HUD discovered an incorrect amendatory instruction. This document makes the necessary correction. The effective date for HUD's final rule of January 13, 2017 is unchanged.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 30 days of public comment.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comment from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

The Public Housing/Section 8 Moving to Work (MTW) demonstration program was first established under Section 204 of the Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996 to provide statutory and regulatory flexibility to participating public housing agencies (PHAs) under three statutory objectives. Those three statutory objectives are: To reduce cost and achieve greater cost effectiveness in federal expenditures; to give incentives to families with children where the head of household is working, is seeking work, or is preparing for work by participating in job training, educational programs, or programs that assist people to obtain employment and become economically self-sufficient; and to increase housing choices for eligible low-income families. Section 239 of the Fiscal Year 2016 Appropriations Act, Public Law 114-113 (2016 MTW Expansion Statute), signed by the President in December of 2015, authorizes HUD to expand the MTW demonstration program from the current level of 39 PHAs to an additional 100 PHAs over a period of seven years. In this notice, HUD seeks public comment on the draft Operations Notice for the Expansion of the MTW demonstration program (Operations Notice). The Operations Notice establishes requirements for the implementation and continued operations of the MTW demonstration program pursuant to the 2016 MTW Expansion Statute. HUD seeks public comment on all aspects of the Operations Notice and on specific areas for comment identified throughout this notice. HUD also seeks comment on the topic of regionalization in the MTW demonstration, which is discussed in Section 9 of the Operations Notice. Appendix C of this notice contains a listing of all of the questions in which HUD seeks public comment.

On July 29, 2016, President Obama signed into law the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016 (HOTMA). Several of the statutory amendments made by HOTMA affect the Project-Based Voucher (PBV) program or the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. HOTMA also gave HUD the authority to implement many of those changes by notice, and those statutory changes are not effective until HUD issues that notice. This document serves as the implementation notice for several of the provisions of HOTMA that impact the HCV and PBV programs, and seeks additional public input on both the implementing requirements in this document and future changes to these programs.

This notice advises the public of an additional waiver applicable to the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) grants provided to the State of New York for the purpose of assisting in the recovery from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City. As described in the ``Background'' section of this notice, HUD is authorized by statute and regulations to waive statutory and regulatory requirements and specify alternative requirements for this purpose upon the request of the grantee.

This notice announces that the Assessment Tool developed by HUD for use by Public Housing Agencies receiving assistance under the United States Housing Act of 1937 has completed the notice and comment process required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA), been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget and approved. While this Assessment Tool has been approved, this Notice does not trigger the obligation of PHAs to conduct and submit an AFH in accordance with 24 CFR 5.160, as HUD has not yet provided PHAs with the data they will need. As HUD makes data available for certain PHAs, HUD will publish, in the Federal Register, a Notice announcing the availability of data for certain PHAs, triggering their obligation to conduct and submit an AFH, and will post such Notice on the HUD Exchange. HUD also anticipates that, at that time, the online User Interface will be available for use by PHAs. Until such time that PHAs are required to conduct and submit an AFH, HUD notes that PHAs must continue to comply with existing fair housing and civil rights requirements. This Assessment Tool, referred to as the PHA Assessment Tool, was modeled on the Local Government Assessment Tool, first approved by OMB on December 31, 2015 but with modifications to address the different public housing and Housing Choice Voucher operations that PHAs have compared to local governments, and how fair housing planning may be undertaken by PHAs in a meaningful manner. As with the Local Government Assessment Tool, the PHA Assessment Tool allows for collaboration with other PHAs. To reduce burden for PHAs, HUD has increased the threshold for the insert from QPHAs that have 550 units or less to PHAs with 1,250 or fewer combined public housing and HCV units. HUD has also committed to developing an additional Assessment Tool specifically for use by Qualified PHAs (QPHAs) who conduct and submit an individual AFH or collaborate with other QPHAs to conduct and submit a joint AFH to be issued in 2017. Therefore, this PHA Assessment Tool will be for use by PHAs submitting AFHs individually or jointly, and for collaborations among PHAs with 1,250 or fewer units and with PHAs with more than 1,250 units. In addition, to reduce burden further, this Assessment Tool includes an insert with streamlined questions for PHAs with 1,250 or fewer units to use if jointly submitting with PHA with more than 1,250 units. In addition, this Assessment Tool includes revised instructions based on public comments received during the 30-day PRA review that provide more guidance to PHAs in conducting the AFH, including how the regional analysis is to be prepared based on the location of a PHA's geographic region and program type. Through the notice and comment process required by the PRA, HUD made changes to the PHA Assessment Tool from the 30-day notice published in the Federal Register on August 23, 2016.

This Notice identifies unutilized, underutilized, excess, and surplus Federal property reviewed by HUD for suitability for possible use to assist the homeless.

On December 20, 2016, HUD published a final rule requiring the installation of broadband infrastructure at the time of new construction or substantial rehabilitation of multifamily rental housing that is funded or supported by HUD, the point at which such installation is generally easier and less costly than when undertaken as a stand-alone effort. This document corrects incorrect paragraph designations in one section of the regulatory text. The effective date for HUD's final rule of January 19, 2017 is unchanged.

HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the information collection described below. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, HUD is requesting comments from all interested parties on the proposed collection of information. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment.

HUD has submitted the proposed information collection requirement described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act. The purpose of this notice is to allow for an additional 30 days of public comment.