Along with the cold weather comes the risk of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. CO is a colorless, odorless gas that kills an estimated 1,000 people each year, according to the National Safety Council.
In September, HUD Inspector General David Montoya testified in front of the House Financial Services Committee. He highlighted the challenges of conducting investigations with HUD’s limited staffing capacity after sequestration as more fraudulent and abusive activity surfaces within government housing programs.
Very often, household members applying to or already living at a site say they need to have an aide live with them to help them with daily tasks. If a resident who is elderly (age 62 or older) or near elderly (age 50 or older) or who has a disability, asks you to allow her to have a live-in aide to accommodate her disability and to provide supportive services essential to her care and well-being, HUD and the Fair Housing Act (FHA) require you to grant the request as a reasonable accommodation.
Since 2009, HUD has strongly encouraged public housing agencies to adopt smoke-free buildings to protect the health of residents, and recently HUD has urged owners of federally assisted multifamily properties to go smoke-free. And you may be considering banning smoking at your site—or in parts of it—to save money and attract responsible residents.
From time to time, you may need to transfer a household to another unit at your site. For example, if a household has lost members, you may have to transfer it to a smaller unit because it’s no longer eligible to occupy the larger unit. Or you may be required by fair housing law to allow a household to transfer to a different unit to reasonably accommodate a disability. Whatever the reason for a transfer, once you’ve decided to do it, we recommend the following steps to process it.
Households that skip out without paying rent and don’t let you know where they’ve gone and whether they’re coming back can cause big headaches. When a unit is abandoned you have to deal with problems like frozen pipes and more serious health and safety hazards. And you need to figure out what to do about the household’s assistance.
HUD generally requires you to get Social Security numbers (SSNs) for all members of an applicant household who are at least 6 years old. And HUD requires you to get proof of those numbers and specifies which documents you can accept as proof. But what if a household member was never issued an SSN? Or what if a household member can’t give you one of the specified documents?
HUD’s “one-strike” rule sets out specific grounds for denying admission to applicants based on certain drug-related and other criminal activity. It requires you to add certain screening criteria to your resident selection plan and lets you add other optional criteria to screen out applicants with drug-related and criminal backgrounds. And it requires you to determine whether applicants meet these criteria, by performing appropriate criminal background checks.
On April 30, HUD and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a joint statement concerning the Fair Housing Act requirement that multifamily housing be designed and constructed so as to be accessible to persons with disabilities. The new guidance aims to help design professionals, developers, and builders better understand their obligations, and help persons with disabilities better understand their rights regarding the “design and construction” requirements of the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA).
