Dealing with Households

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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 the right of residents to organize and advocate for their best interests.

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. For example, a senior household head may be threatened or abused by an adult child or teenage grandchild.

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 the roof.

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 how much a repair will cost her, she might think twice before damaging her unit.

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 amount based on 30 percent of the household’s adjusted income.

On Sept. 4, 2014, HUD issued Notice H 2014-12 (Implementation of Tenant Participation Requirements in accordance with 24 CFR Part 245). HUD regulations governing tenant participation in multifamily housing projects are found at 24 CFR Part 245 Subpart B. According to HUD, tenant participation is an important element to maintaining sustainable projects and communities. The notice addresses available sanctions and the use of civil money penalties as tools to enforce HUD’s commitment to tenant participation.

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.