Bill Would Radically Reshape HUD Rental Housing Programs
Issue 27, Spring 2005
Bill Would Radically Reshape HUD Rental
Housing Programs
by Jim
Schaafsma, MPLP Housing Law Attorney
The State and Local Flexibility Act of 2005 (S. 771; http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/thomas),
introduced in the U.S. Senate on April 13 by Sen. Wayne Allard, would significantly
change the shape of the HUD rental housing programs. Among its provisions are
ones that would:
change the requirement that 75% of available Section 8
vouchers be reserved for "extremely low income" (30% and below the
area median income) households by allowing 90% of vouchers to go to households
with incomes up to 60% of an area's median. (At a hearing of the Subcommittee
on Housing and Transportation of the U.S. Senate's Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs Committee, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, HUD
Secretary Alphonso Jackson said in administering the Section 8 program, housing
agencies should be allowed to serve households with incomes up to 150% of AMI.
In the Detroit area, 150% of AMI for
a household of 4 be more than $100,000)
allow terms limits for HUD housing assistance of not less
than 5 years;
not require that tenant rents be based on household income;
limit the portability of Section 8 vouchers, and limit
to 1 year the enhanced feature of vouchers that go to families in privately
owned HUD assisted housing whose owners have gotten out of their project based
create a new "Moving to Work" program that would
allow HUD to waive all statutory requirements in the voucher and public housing
programs except for public housing's demolition and disposition rules.
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