HUD requires all applicants to give you their Social Security number. But what if an applicant says she does not have one? HUD rules do not require you to accept applicants who do not have a Social Security number, nor do HUD rules bar you from accepting such applicants. Generally, sites do not reject these applicants. However, sites may also set a policy about requiring that an applicant obtain a Social Security number.
Housing advocacy groups are promoting a federal initiative that would require HUD to fulfill its obligations to owners arising out of housing assistance payment (HAP) contracts in fiscal year 2008 (FY08) on time and in full, says Denise Muha, executive director of the National Leased Housing Association (NLHA).
If you, as a site owner or manager, screen applicants yourself, one of the most important steps you take is to contact applicants' current and prior rental references.References' evaluations are valuable in helping you decide whether to rent a tax credit unit to an applicant. But rental references are often reluctant to fill out forms, so you might find it easier to call them to get the information you need. To get an informative reference over the telephone, you need to ask the right questions and keep a record of the answers.
Groundwork for the establishment of a national affordable housing trust fund was laid last fall, when the House of Representatives passed legislation (H.R. 2895) that House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., had introduced, and when Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., introduced a companion bill in the Senate (S.2523), which was almost identical to the House bill. The Senate bill has already been referred to the Senate Banking Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
As a site owner or manager, you are required by federal Fair Housing law to do what is reasonable in granting requests for accommodations or modifications, so that a visually impaired applicant might consider residing at your site. Furthermore, you are under a legal obligation to ensure that a visually impaired resident has the same “full use and enjoyment” of the site as a resident who is not disabled. Each visually impaired applicant or resident will have different needs that you must address.
Federal Fair Housing law makes it illegal to discriminate against prospects and residents with disabilities. This includes persons who are blind or who suffer from some other visual impairment, ranging from significant to total vision loss.
A recent follow-up to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition's study of national housing patterns indicates that in the four-year period from 2001 through 2004, more than 1.2 million housing units ceased to be affordable.In some cities, such as New York, affordable housing is declining at an even faster rate. According to the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, the number of New York City units that a family making $33,000 a year could afford fell by 205,000 between 2002 and 2005—an average annual loss of more than 50,000 units.
Combining tax credits from the low income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program with energy tax credits (which are most associated with solar panels) raises a variety of issues for developers of housing projects. With the help of Forrest Milder, an attorney at Nixon Peabody and an expert on tax credit financing, we tell you what the issues are and how you can avoid mistakes that could cause an owner to forfeit its entire allocation of tax credits.
In 2007, HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), the division devoted to anti-discrimination and Fair Housing concerns, investigated approximately 10,300 cases involving claims of discrimination, according to Kim Kendrick, assistant secretary for FHEO. Based on a pattern of investigation by HUD, going back several years, HUD is increasing its efforts to end discrimination in housing.
This month, the manager of an affordable housing site in Texas reported how—as many managers have done—she had brought Internet access into the management office to help run the site and communicate with HUD, prospects, applicants, and residents. She expected site employees to spend a lot of time using the Internet and sending site-related email. What she did not expect was that Internet access would also lead employees to spend a good deal of time using the Internet for personal purposes.
