Dealing with Households

RSS

The Trump administration has long signaled through its budget proposals that it aims to raise the bar for federal assistance, in large part through expanding work requirements. HUD recently released legislative text proposing sweeping HUD rent reforms. Entitled the “Making Affordable Housing Work Act of 2018,” its proposals include rent increases on certain households and the ability for local housing authorities and owners to impose work requirements.

When you hire an attorney to evict a resident from your assisted site for violating the lease, you want to have the eviction handled as quickly and efficiently as possible. But the process may be unnecessarily hindered if you fail to give the attorney all the documents and information she needs for a speedy eviction.

Even if you have a solid fair housing policy, train your employees well, and apply your policies consistently, misunderstandings and mistakes can occur. Despite your best efforts, a resident may complain to you that you’ve treated him unfairly in violation of fair housing laws. The grievance may be groundless or there may be something to it. Either way, the result could be costly if the resident files a formal complaint or lawsuit.

When you settle an eviction case involving nonpayment of rent, you and your resident must sign an agreement that’s reviewed and approved by the court. In a typical agreement, the resident agrees to pay back rent and charges according to a set payment schedule.

HUD and other affordable housing regulators and funders strongly encourage or even require owners and managers to engage residents in helping maintain a green and healthy site, including getting their input on ways to improve upon and add green practices and giving them incentives to participate to help the site meet its sustainability goals.

Tenant participation has the potential to improve the overall management of a site in both quality and cost effectiveness, to protect resident interests, to create community and a social support system on-site, to empower residents as a group and individually, and to give to individual residents the opportunity to build marketable skills based on their participation. For these reasons, HUD encourages and supports tenant organizations and has implemented rules protecting...

Many elderly residents are capable of living independently. But sooner or later, you may have an elderly resident who has trouble coping with day-to-day concerns, such as managing money, paying rent on time, or keeping his unit tidy. Or you may suspect elder abuse within a household. In general, elder abuse is a term referring to any knowing, intentional, or negligent act by a caregiver or any other person that causes harm or a serious risk of harm to a vulnerable adult...

During summer months, household members often like to use a site’s roof for recreational purposes, such as sunbathing, barbecuing, watching fireworks, or catching a breath of fresh air. But letting residents and guests use your roof could lead to liability for your site. For example, if a resident gets seriously injured or causes costly property damage, a court may rule that you’re liable for the injuries or damage because you let residents and guests use th...

To discourage residents from damaging their units and to make it easier to get current residents to reimburse you for the cost of repairing damage they’ve caused, you should have available a list of repairs your maintenance staff perform most often and how much those repairs cost. The list should be given to residents to let them know that they’ll be responsible for reimbursing you if you incur these costs because of damage they caused. If a resident knows h...

You may occasionally get applications from households that want to use their Housing Choice vouchers at your site. The Housing Choice voucher program is a form of rental assistance administered by local public housing agencies (PHAs) that allows households to use vouchers to subsidize the rent of units in the “marketplace.” Like project-based assistance, the voucher program uses very-low income limits to determine eligibility and calculates the assistance am...