HOME Final Rule Published
This month I am happy to report that the 2013 HOME Final Rule was finally published on July 24, 2013 19 months after the Proposed Rule was issued in December of 2011. Since I usually write about the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, you may be wondering why I chose to report on this HOME development instead. In my mind the two go hand-in-hand, as approximately half of all housing credit properties also have HOME assistance. If you’ve taken NCHM’s Blended Occupancy Specialist (BOS) course, you know that we talk a lot about these two programs when layered with one another and also with HUD project-based programs, so this is certainly relevant news to many in the LIHTC community.
The first major revision to the HOME regulations since 1996, the updates are designed to give state and local participating jurisdictions (PJs) greater flexibility in meeting the complex challenges that have emerged over the years. According to HUD, the Final Rule aims to “improve program performance and oversight to produce a more efficient allocation of HOME resources.” Thie revision also comes on the heels of a scathing series of articles published in the Washington Post in May 2011, which painted a picture of waste, fraud and abuse of HOME funding nationwide. Not suprisingly, the last couple years have seen drastic cuts to HOME allocations in the federal budget.
So, what does the Final Rule say? It makes a significant change to the definition of Low Income and Very Low Income families, which now places student eligibility restrictions on applicant households going forward. It also replaces Housing Quality Standards (HQS) with Uniform Physical Condition Standards (UPCS) as the default property standard for certain HOME programs. There have also been changes to HOME income determinations, activities and fees, utility allowances, rent review, tenant protections and selection, conflicts of interest, and written agreements and on-site inspections, as they apply to rental management expectations and functions and compliance. There are also a whole host of other updates and changes to development requirements of HOME programs as well as the homeownership and tenant-based rental assistance aspects of HOME.
Would you like to know more? Since the breadth and depth of the Final Rule is hard to capture in just one HMU article, I would suggest that you join me on Thursday, August 8 for a Breaking News webinar on this topic. We will review the revisions that have applicability to management and compliance, how they differ from the existing regulations, and what to expect going forward. Please consult www.nchm.org for more details or contact NCHM directly to register.