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Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) recently introduced H.R. 482, as Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced S. 103, an identical piece of companion legislation in the Senate. While the Fair Housing Act has been in place since 1968, it wasn’t until the Obama administration when a rule was put in place enforcing affirmative action by local communities to assess fair housing issues through collected geospatial data. The proposed legislation would void the 2015 AFFH rule and 2015 AFFH Notice relating to the Assessment Tool.

In an effort to respond quickly when young children living in federally assisted housing experience elevated levels of lead in their blood, HUD published a new rule lowering the department’s threshold of lead in the child’s blood to match the more protective guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). HUD’s new action level for lead in a young child’s blood has been lowered from 20 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (µg/dL) to 5.

HUD recently posted interim guidance for states regarding their statutory obligation to affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH). The guidance tells how states should comply with the rule until HUD finalizes the state Assessment of Fair Housing Tool.

HUD published a notice in the Federal Register on Jan. 18 that implements many provisions of the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016 (HOTMA) that pertain to the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) tenant-based and project-based voucher (PBV) programs.

Outgoing HUD Secretary Julian Castro recently issued his cabinet exit memo titled “Housing as a Platform for Opportunity.” The memo highlights initiatives, issues, and accomplishments from his tenure in the Obama administration. The memo also points out upcoming challenges for HUD such as a severely aging public housing stock and an affordable housing crisis in many areas of the country.

A recent memorandum issued by Acting General Counsel Tonya Robinson clarified that certain noncitizens who are “battered or subject to extreme cruelty” by a spouse or parent who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident (LPR) has the right to apply for and receive housing assistance under Section 214 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980. Section 214 covers public housing, Section 8 tenant-based and project-based rental assistance, Rent Supplement, Flexible Subsidy, and Section 221d(3) Below Market Interest Rate Programs.

HUD recently published a final rule requiring installation of broadband infrastructure at the time of new construction or substantial rehabilitation of multifamily housing that has more than four rental units funded or supported by HUD.

A recent study published in Cityscape titled “Vouchers and Neighborhood Distress” finds that Housing Choice Vouchers utilized by female-headed families are underrepresented in neighborhoods with low levels of distress and overrepresented in neighborhoods with high levels. The Cityscape journal is published by HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research. The authors suggest that governments have to help voucher holders overcome racial barriers to access low-distress neighborhoods, which are predominantly white or racially integrated.

A Capital Needs Assessment (CNA) is a plan for a site to address existing deferred maintenance, to modernize and rehabilitate, and to ensure that all the needs of a site are addressed well into the future. The assessments are used for applications for funding, planning for rehabs, corrections for handicapped accessibility, and the development of plans for interior updates. Specifically, the purposes of CNAs include:

In August 2015, HUD issued a new Section 8 Renewal Policy Guide. Section 9-23 of the Guide provides instructions for comparing the median rents as derived by the appraiser in a rent comparability study (RCS) with Census Bureau estimates of the median rents in the project’s ZIP code. Should the rents in the owner’s study exceed 140 percent of the median ZIP code rent threshold, then HUD would secure a third party to create a RCS for comparison purposes. When HUD issued the guide, the median ZIP code rents as of December 2014 were also published.