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HUD recently announced that it’s issuing a proposed rule that would amend its existing regulations regarding the equal participation of faith-based (religious) organizations in HUD programs. The amendments are being undertaken to implement Executive Order (EO) 13559, Fundamental Principles and Policymaking Criteria for Partnerships with Faith-Based and Other Neighborhood Organizations, which President Obama signed in November 2010.
HUD recently released a study concluding that housing vouchers are the most effective method for reducing homelessness. In HUD’s Family Options Study: Short-Term Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families, the agency looked at 2,282 homeless families in emergency shelters from 12 metropolitan areas in California, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Missouri, Kentucky, Minnesota, Arizona, and Utah. The families, which included more than 5,000 children, were tracked for a year and a half, from September 2010 through January 2012.
On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that claims of racial discrimination in housing cases shouldn’t be limited by questions of intent. The court affirmed a Court of Appeals decision in a case in which a nonprofit group sued the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for contributing to “segregated housing patterns” by allocating a disproportionate amount of the state’s Housing Credits to developments in predominantly black inner-city areas.
The Obama administration recently announced a new initiative to increase access to solar energy for all Americans, in particular low- and moderate-income communities. Last year, the United States brought online as much solar energy every three weeks as it did in all of 2008. And since the beginning of 2010, the average cost of a solar electric system has dropped by 50 percent.
Here are the executive actions the administration will implement to scale up solar energy and decrease energy bills:
Under newly announced rules, communities around the United States seeking federal housing grants will soon be required to address segregation and inequality in housing. The rules will require towns and cities to study patterns of segregation and how they’re linked to access to jobs, high-quality schools, and public transportation, and to publicly report, every three to five years, the results. Then, the municipalities must submit goals, which will be tracked over time, for improving fair access to housing.
Recently, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to H.R. 2578, the Fiscal Year 2016 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act, authored by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., that would limit disparate impact prosecutions. The amendment would bar the Department of Justice from using funds for litigation in which they seek to apply disparate impact theory.
A report recently issued by the Furman Center at New York University and Capital One examined rental housing affordability trends in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas (New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Houston; Philadelphia; Dallas; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Boston; Atlanta; and Miami) from 2006 to 2013. According to the report, the supply of affordable rental housing failed to keep pace with demand in the 11 largest U.S. cities while rents rose faster than household incomes in five of them.
On June 2, in a Federal Register notice, HUD announced its intention to amend Fair Market Rent (FMR) regulations for the Housing Choice Voucher program. The notice seeks public comment regarding the use of small area FMRs (SAFMRs) in certain metropolitan areas. HUD proposes to use SAFMRs in the Housing Choice Voucher program instead of the current 50th percentile FMRs.
President Obama has threatened to veto a $55 billion Republican funding bill for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. The White House recently stated that Obama would reject the measure, which is known as THUD, on the grounds that it underfunds federal transportation and housing programs.
House Appropriations Transportation-HUD subcommittee recently approved a FY 2016 Transportation Housing and Urban Development (THUD) appropriations bill that would provide $42 billion for HUD, an increase of $1 billion above the FY 2015 enacted level and $3 billion below the Obama administration’s budget request.
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