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April is National Fair Housing Month, which, according to HUD, is time for people to come together “as a community and a nation to celebrate the anniversary of the passing of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and recommit to that goal which inspired us in the aftermath of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968: to eliminate housing discrimination and create equal opportunity in every community.”
HUD defines a waiting list as a formal record of applicants for housing assistance or assisted housing units that identifies the applicant’s name, date and time of application, selection preferences claimed, income category, and the need for an accessible unit. The waiting list may be kept in either a bound journal or a computer program [HUD Handbook 4350.3, Glossary]. If your site is considering using an electronic waiting list maintained through a computer, you must follow some special HUD rules for electronic waiting lists [Handbook 4350.3, par. 4-18].
Since the latest continuing resolution, which funded HUD and several other federal agencies in the absence of enacted Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 appropriations bills, expired on Dec. 21, 2018, Congress and President Trump haven’t enacted a final FY 2019 HUD bill. As a result, funding for HUD has lapsed and a partial government shutdown has ensued. It’s not a complete government shutdown, because Congress has enacted some of its FY 2019 appropriations bills such as the one for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Inspectors sometimes hit sites with inspection violations (what HUD calls “defects” or “deficiencies”) for conditions that aren’t actually violations or that the inspector shouldn’t have inspected in the first place. This happens because HUD’s inspection standards contained in its Dictionary of Deficiency Definitions aren’t always clear about what parts of a site are subject to inspection and what is and isn’t a violation. So different inspectors may interpret the same standard in different ways.
Some sites don’t pursue residents aggressively enough to collect back rent owed and excess assistance. They believe that because residents’ income levels are low and the amounts owed are small, it’s not worth the sites’ time or money to chase after these debts. So these sites may end up with large unpaid resident accounts receivable balances on their books.
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 communication between HUD and the local housing authorities it oversees. Cases of children poisoned by lead aren’t always identified and followed up on in a timely manner.
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 be a big problem in housing because a manager or maintenance worker has a great deal of power over matters such as safety and security that affect residents’ ability to enjoy their apartments.
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 talking to doctors and nurses on someone’s behalf; helping to bathe or dress someone who is frail or disabled; or taking care of household chores, meals, or bills for someone who cannot do these things alone.
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 crime would be “foreseeable,” and if you failed to take reasonable steps to prevent it from happening, you would be liable.
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