HUD Proposed FY 2015 Fair Market Rent Comment Period Expires Monday: Bend Comments, and My Comments.

The FY 2015 proposed HUD fair market rent comment period expires on Monday September 15. Final FMR's will be effective October 1.

As of Saturday AM there are total of 53 national comments, and 13 from Oregon. All but one of those comments concern the Bend proposed FMR's and suggest a 3BR FMR of $1,221 plus a utility allowance instead of the proposed $1,149 FMR.  

My calculation is that even with the proposed $1,149 3 BR FMR a $1,270 3 br exception payment standard MAY be approvable by the HUD field office for one Bend area low poverty rate (9.9%) zip code, 97702.  [My prior post explaining the HUD exception payment standard procedure and available data sources is HERE].   

My comment recommends the addition of a comparison column between the small area (zip code) FMR and the area FMR to help identify zip codes that might qualify for HUD local field office approval of exception rents between 110-120% of FMR. (This for example would have helped the PHA identify the Bend area zip code that may qualify for the exception payment standard).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.