HHS Releases 2015 Poverty Guidelines

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) recently issued its 2015 poverty guidelines. These guidelines are used to determine financial eligibility for certain federal programs. Now that these guidelines have been published, HUD will release two sets of new income limits for fiscal year 2015 soon.

The two sets of income limits are the Section 8 income limits, which are used to determine income eligibility for HUD’s assisted housing programs, and the Multifamily Tax Subsidy Projects income limits, which are used to determine qualification levels and to set maximum rental rates for low-income housing tax credit or tax-exempt bond sites.

HUD was originally expected to release its 2015 income limits in December. But it was delayed because the 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act changed the definition of “extremely low-income” households to very low-income families whose income does not exceed the greater of the federal poverty guidelines as published by HHS or 30 percent of area median family income. The extremely low-income household definition is mainly used for setting admission qualifications in the Housing Choice Voucher program.