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While available vaccines have proven effective in controlling COVID-19 and its variants to date, the virus continues to spread particularly among unvaccinated populations. Officials have been trying different approaches to increase vaccination rates from incentive programs to educational outreach.
The tax credit law doesn’t bar you from renting to employees. In fact, many sites have on-site employees—from property managers to security officers to maintenance workers—who reside at the LIHTC site and are essential to the success of the property. Having someone employed by the site living there makes it easy for residents to get help with an issue and continue to enjoy where they live.
Last year, HUD and the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced an interagency task force to combat sexual harassment in housing. This joint outreach followed a DOJ pilot program started in October 2017. The initiative sought to increase the Department’s efforts to protect women from harassment by landlords, property managers, maintenance workers, security guards, and other employees and representatives of rental property owners.
Suppose a resident’s unit is burglarized or a site visitor falls when a stairway handrail becomes loose or something happens at your site which causes property loss or bodily injury. Are you certain your employees let you know about certain incidents like these as soon as they happen? If they don’t, you risk insurance coverage problems.
Most insurance policies require owners to notify their insurance companies as soon as possible after there’s any incident that could lead to a claim. If your notice comes too late, the insurance company can refuse to cover you.
Some of the most important, and often overlooked, sources of fair housing complaints arise from maintenance operations. Site owners and managers may face allegations of discriminatory maintenance policies or procedures—for example, that requests from white households are routinely pushed ahead of those from minority households.
Emergencies, disasters, accidents, and injuries can occur any time and without warning. Most recently, in June, the president declared parts of Florida a federal disaster area as a result of damage done by Tropical Storm Debby. And this year, areas of West Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, and Alabama have all been declared federal disaster areas as a result of storms.
As the U.S. economy makes a long and slow recovery, there has been an increasing demand for affordable housing across the country. A recent report released by the DePaul University Institute for Housing Studies detailed the state of one Illinois county's rental housing market. It concluded that there was a countywide affordable housing shortage and that more than three-quarters of households making less than $35,000 per year in the county pay out more than 30 percent of their income to rent.
Due to record heat waves set in many areas of the country this summer, you may have noticed an increase in the number of residents installing air conditioners in their windows, especially if your site has no central air conditioning. Unfortunately, residents don't always install them properly. Instead of using secure metal brackets, they may try to secure the units in their windows with bricks or wooden blocks.
Many tax credit sites permit a resident manager, superintendent, or similar site-level employee to occupy a unit. This arrangement may raise a red flag to state auditors if the unit is not being used as permitted in the original allocation agreement with the state. Operating in the dark with regard to an employee unit can cause the owner to lose the tax credits on the unit and possibly result in tax credit recapture as far back as the first year of the compliance period.
Most well-managed tax credit sites have one thing in common: the ability of management and maintenance to work in a cohesive and productive manner. Working as a team requires both parties to understand the site's objectives and how each area's specific functions contribute to its overall success.
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