The Public Housing Plan

Summary

S. 462
All HAs would be required to submit a "Public Housing Agency Plan" which would require a certification that the plan complies with the Comprehensive Housing Affordability Strategy and identifies: goals and objectives, how the HA will meet local housing needs, all policies and rules regarding admissions, all policies and rules regarding management, the capital needs and plan for administering the Capital Fund, home-ownership and other self-sufficiency goals, demo-dispo plans, Section 8 payment standards used, the results of the annual audit, and the rules governing the local advisory board. HAs would submit five-year plans with annual updates. The bill provides that regulations would be issued through negotiated rulemaking, i.e., through discussions among the industry, HUD, and Congress with a facilitator.

H.R. 2
All HAs would be required to submit a "Local Housing Management Plan" which would include the operating budget, five-year goals, all policies regarding eligibility, admissions, and occupancy, fair housing policies, outreach efforts to the homeless, all policies regarding rent, policies regarding portability, standards and policies regarding maintenance and management, the grievance policy, a five-year capital improvement plan, demo-dispo plans, policies regarding designated housing, voucherization plan (as per another section of the bill), plan to coordinate with state welfare agencies, and a security plan. A recent draft version of the bill is more similar to the Senate version, including the provision that regulations be issued through negotiated rulemaking. However, this recent draft also requires public hearings to be held at each housing authority as a step in the development of their housing plan.

PHADA position

• Any housing authority plan should be subject to negotiated rulemaking, as in S. 462, to ensure its quality and feasibility.

• HAs should be exempt from elements not applicable to their specific circumstances.

• Revisions to the plan should not be subject to public hearings.

• High performing and small agencies should be exempt from major portions of the plan.

• The requirements regarding management procedures is much too broad and includes items that are not currently required, in apparent contradiction to the stated purposes of the bills.

• The five-year plan with annual updates is preferable to the annual plan in the House bill.

Suggested action
Support the position that the best way to determine the nature of a housing authority plan is through the negotiated rulemaking process. All parties (HUD, industry, Congress) agree that this process was a major success when determining the rules concerning vacancies -- the only time negotiated rulemaking has been done for public housing.