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HUD recently announced that it’s returning the Housing Authority of the City of Lafayette (HACL), Louisiana, to local control, five years after HUD assumed day-to-day administration of the once-troubled agency. HUD took over operational control of the HACL in March of 2011 for substantial default of the agency’s obligations including financial mismanagement, misuse of funds, and a lack of leadership. 

HUD recently posted the Utility Allowance Adjustment Factors for 2017. HUD permits owners/agents to use the Utility Allowance Factors (UAFs) for projects subject to the requirements found in Housing’s Utility Analysis Notice. Attachment B of the notice is a Sample Release of Tenant Utility Information form. The factors are effective for any project with an anniversary date on or after Feb. 11, 2017.

HUD recently issued a notice in the Federal Register requesting public comments on a proposed requirement for owners of HUD-funded multifamily housing to implement energy benchmarking in their properties, consistent with the President’s Climate Action Plan and other Administration and HUD initiatives to improve energy efficiency in HUD-assisted properties.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a report titled “Elderly Housing: HUD Should Do More to Oversee Efforts to Link Residents to Services.” GAO estimates that roughly half of the 7,229 Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly (Section 202) properties have HUD-funded service coordinators—staff who link residents to supportive services such as transportation assistance or meals. HUD’s data indicate that 38 percent of Section 202 properties have a HUD-funded service coordinator, but these data likely underestimate the true number.

HUD recently announced that it’s publishing a final rule formalizing legal standards under the Fair Housing Act for sexual and other forms of harassment in housing. In addition, HUD is issuing Fair Housing Act guidance on local “nuisance ordinances” that may lead to housing discrimination against survivors of domestic violence and other persons in need of emergency services.

The new fiscal year for the U.S. government begins on Oct. 1, and Congress has so far failed to enact any of the 12 federal spending bills for FY 2017, including those that fund affordable housing and community development.

Scholars from the Urban Institute are looking at the various ways in which public housing authorities (PHAs) and school districts are working together to better serve low-income children living in HUD-assisted housing. The analysis is intended to offer evidence-based ideas for programs and policies public housing agencies can test through HUD’s Moving to Work Demonstration.

Urban Institute and National Housing Conference have created an interactive webpage that illustrates the need for subsidy when charging affordable rents to low-income families. The tool highlights the gap between the cost of constructing and maintaining rental housing affordable to low-income households and the rents those families can afford to pay.

To protect children and families from the hazards of lead-based paint and from other home health and safety hazards, HUD recently awarded more than $52.6 million in Lead Based Paint Hazard Control grants to 23 local and state government agencies.

HUD recently posted Notice CPD-16-14, which provides guidance for meeting environmental requirements when national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) money is used for new construction and rehabilitation. The HTF is a new affordable housing production program that will complement existing federal, state and local efforts to increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, including families experiencing homelessness.