Call me old-fashioned (or, if you must, refer to me as ‘near elderly,” as HUD regulations currently define someone between 49-61 years of age), but I believe in “fair play” just as much as I believe in fair housing.
When HUD issues a rule, I believe it has the right to expect diligence on the part of owners/agents to implement that rule as expediently as possible. On the flip side, I think it only fair that HUD and its agents demonstrate the same diligence and expedience when it comes to articulating clear policies and how compliance is evaluated. Ultimately, all parties involved have a vested interest in things being done properly and in compliance.
With that in mind, I want to make the following suggestions:
HUD: Please consider putting out a definitive policy on two issues: Reverse Mortgages and state-sanctioned medicinal use of marijuana. Owners/Agents are uncertain about the former and squeezed by the tension between state law on the one hand and federal criminal law on the other. Uncertainty and tension are not harbingers of compliance.
Contract Administrators/Performance Based Contract Administrators: You often get a bad rap, and there are people out there who have the (incorrect) perception that PBCA’s get paid based on the number of findings you put down on HUD Form 9834. You are at times between a “rock and a hard place.” But this can also be said for the properties you review. For instance, HUD Notice H2010-10 on EIV became effective on July 1 but wasn’t posted until July 6. Do you really need to reference this notice as a “Finding” for Management and Occupancy Reviews done in April, May and June? If so, use the provisions of the two predecessor notices (H2008-03 and/or H2009-20). Your point can still be made, and would be much fairer.
Owners/agents: The demands on you have never been greater than they are right now. Compliance with HUD guidelines and regulations is a 24/7 job, not the 9 to 5 task it might have been 20 years ago. Larger companies have full-time compliance departments; smaller organizations are feeling overwhelmed.
In order to avoid any misunderstandings, without these three parties there probably would not be assisted housing. I appreciate and support the efforts each has made to improving countless lives. In “playing fair,” in leveling the playing field, there is a recognition that housing and housing management is about more than regulations, form numbers and effective dates, important as those are. At the end of the day, it is about people.