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If you’re having problems with criminal activity or other undesirable conduct at or near your assisted site, you may want to house a police or security officer in one of your site’s units. The presence of a police or security officer may help deter crime at your site and help create a more pleasant and secure environment for your residents as a result. HUD lets you rent units to police or security officers even if they don’t meet the site’s income limits.
HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) issued its final guidance on limited English proficiency (LEP) in 2007. The final guidance was based on an Executive Order signed by President Clinton in August 2000, later reaffirmed by President Bush with Executive Order 13166, and most recently affirmed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in a February 2011 memorandum to federal agencies reaffirming the mandates of the previous executive orders.
The Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system is a web-based computer system implemented by HUD that owners have been required to use since January 2010. It contains employment and income information on individuals participating in HUD’s rental assistance programs. It derives data from HUD’s Multi-Family and Public Housing databases, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’) National Directory of New Hires [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 9-6(A)].
When applicants approach the top of the waiting list, you must meet with them to certify their eligibility for housing assistance. HUD requires managers to cover a long list of topics during the initial certification meeting. But site staff may be poorly prepared or may not cover all the required information. Also, site staff may not inform applicants about their responsibilities in the right way. As a result, you won’t get all the information you need to properly and accurately certify applicants, and applicants may not understand their duties.
After years of having a closed waiting list, your site may find itself having enough vacancies to open waiting lists again. HUD allows a site to close waiting lists in the first place for one or more unit sizes when the average wait is excessive, such as one year or more [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 4-16(B)(1)(a)].
If you own or manage an assisted site, you must have a written resident selection plan that incorporates the policies and procedures covering each step of the selection process. And your plan must comply with HUD’s eligibility, admission, and screening requirements [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 4-4 (A)]. HUD spells out the topics you must include in your plan, as well as other topics it recommends you include.
As a site owner or manager, you understand the severe financial consequences that can result from things beyond your control, such as a loss due to fire, flood, weather, or other causes. In addition, whether it’s a legitimate claim or not, you could also face expensive legal difficulties from liability claims associated with on-site crime, common parking areas, and site amenities such as swimming pools and playground equipment.
When certifying or recertifying households, you may occasionally encounter a household member who earns income from a self-owned business. For example, a household member may own a small retail store or hair salon, be a computer consultant or house painter, or own and run a daycare center or landscaping business. Calculating and verifying the household’s income from a self-owned business can be hard. You need to know what to count as income from the business so you can accurately calculate the household’s rent.
Many management companies charge employees’ travel expenses to site operating accounts. Travel expenses to visit sites, meet with owners, and attend training are allowed because charges involve work-related travel by employees who perform such frontline tasks as certification, accounting, or maintenance [HUD Handbook 4381.5, fig. 6-2]. But problems can occur if companies don’t keep track of who’s doing the traveling and for what purpose, or whether the travel expenses are reasonable or necessary.
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