HUD Section 8 Contract Administration: 33 Bid Protests Cover 25 States, 70% of All Units.

I have prepared a table HERE that shows the 33 current HUD Section 8 Contract Administration GAO bid protests in alpha order by the state where units are located.  

Some observations: 

1. Of my estimated nationwide total of 1,063,671 units, 743,502 are under bid protest, or 70%. (These are unduplicated unit counts).
2. Maryland and Rhode Island each have 3 protests. 
3. DC, Indiana, and Virginia have 2 protests.
4. Oregon also has two protests, but they are both from OHCS
5. The bidder with the largest number of protests is Georgia based National Housing Compliance with 13; Ohio's Assisted Housing Services Corporation follows in second place with 6 protests.
6. Georgia's National Housing Compliance is protesting 352,547 units, Ohio's Assisted Housing Services Corporation is protesting 167,346 units. 
7. Note that counts of bid protests changed from 22 to 33 in last week, so possible final count could increase and change this current "snapshot in time" data.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

NPR Has Oregon Section 8 Contract Administration Story.

On line story by Chris Lehman is HERE.  

Includes portions of interviews with me, OHCS, Bremerton Housing Authority, and HUD HQS PR person.

You can listen on line OR right click to download the MP 3 audio file for the story HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

OHCS Promptly Provides Copy of Award Letter and Bid Package for Oregon Section 8 Contract Administration; Similar Request Will Go Out to Bremerton's CMS Soon.

Kudos to OHCS for providing a very prompt Tuesday response to my Monday public records request for the award letter from HUD and the OHCS bid package for Oregon Section 8 contract administration.   In my experience one of the highly laudable features about Oregon state and local housing agencies is a near universal willingness to provide public documents for posting and public review. My personal thanks to Rick Crager and to Sandy McDonnell at OHCS for their prompt and complete response.

I have assembled the information I requested into a single PDF file HERE, including the decision letter and a number of exhibits including: 

Application Certifications 

PHA Certification
Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Certification
Sub-Contractor Certification
Capability Statement
Technical Approach
Quality Control Plan
Reasoned Legal Opinion
(I chose to delete the Disaster Section of the bid package as it is my view that it is not essential to understand the OHCS bid and may contain sensitive information about post disaster agency operations).

I will review the material as time permits in the next few days, AND I will also ask for similar materials for Oregon from the Bremerton Housing Authority Contract Management Services Division, the winner of the bid for Oregon Section 8 contract administration. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

Housing Council Meeting: More Details on OHCS Loss of Section 8 Contract Administration Bid.

At Friday's Housing Council meeting Council received a briefing on the failure of OHCS to receive the Section 8 contract administration bid award from HUD. 

From my notes: 

1. Contract in Oregon was for 275 projects; OHCS has said previously that contract had represented $4.5 million in revenue for OHCS. 
2. OHCS has protested bid with both HUD and GAO. Other HFA's are also protesting awards.
3. Basis for OHCS bid protest is that HUD did not properly advise bidders of the weight that price would have on contract award. If OHCS had known price was weighted so heavily it would have impacted the fee percentage in their bid.
4. OHCS is working with Oregon Department of Justice and is hiring outside counsel to help with bid protests. The Massachusets HFA is using the same outside counsel.
5. OHCS bid on contracts in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska and understood that no state housing finance agencies were bidding on those contracts. 
6. The maximum fee that the solicitation allowed was 2.5%. OHCS bid 2.45% and the winning bidder for Oregon bid 1.88% (That's 23.3% less).
7. OHCS has briefed Oregon's congressional delegation on the awards and their bid protests.
8. OHCS has received expressions of support from partners, and a draft will also be circulated to Housing Council for Council to consider.
9. Contracts with winning bidders have not yet been signed.
10. If awards not reversed, fourteen OHCS Asset Management staff will be laid off, and because revenue from contract was cross subsidizing other operations, non Asset Management operations will also be impacted.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Quadel Announces they Are Partner on Section 8 Contract Administation Awards in 8 States, Including Washington State.

Quadel PR with July 14 date can be found HERE.  

They also have a transitions web page HERE.  

8 states include Washington state, awarded in conjunction with the Wisconsin HFA:

Indiana	Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority
North Carolina	North Carolina Housing Finance Agency
Ohio	Ohio Housing Finance Agency
Washington, DC	DC Housing Finance Agency
Illinois	Illinois Housing Development Authority
Virginia	Virginia Dept. of Housing and Community Development
Texas	Dallas Housing Authority (LoneStar Multifamily Solutions)
Washington State	Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Multiple Bid Protests Filed with GAO on HUD Section 8 Contract Administration, Including OHCS.

The GAO link HERE has a listing of 22 open HUD bid protests filed with GAO on July 11. Entries don't provide much detail, but clearly these are protests of the contract awards to administer Section 8 contracts scheduled to be implemented on October 1.

Some firms appear more than once [protests for individual states?], so individual firms total less than 22.  Nine individual firms I currently see are: 

1. National Housing Compliance [located in Georgia, got Florida but not Georgia and perhaps had bid on multiple other states].
2. New York State Housing Trust Fund Corporation
3. Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency
4. Rhode Island Housing-Mortgage Finance Corporation
5. State of Arizona-Department of Housing
6. Delaware State Housing Authority
7. Department of Housing-Community Development State of Maryland
8. New Jersey Housing-Mortgage Finance Agency
9. Oregon Housing-Community Services

Entries for these protests indicate that GAO has a Oct 19 "due date". 

More about GAO bid protests can be found HERE. A timeline HERE suggests that HUD has 30 days after the protest date to provide a report to GAO; then protester has 10 days to respond to the agency report; and that GAO decision will then follow within 60 days.  

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Finally, Some HUD Section 8 Contract Administration Award Stories Are Beginning to Appear.

AP story on Louisiana is HERE, says 12 jobs will be lost.

Ohio HFA story HERE says that Ohio will partner with Quadel.

Idaho HFA story is HERE, says they are recruiting for 28 positions (I don't see any mention of states where they received awards).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Revised DRAFT Project Based Unit Counts by State , Section 8 Contract Admnistration Awards.

It's now more than a week after bidders for the Section 8 project based contracts were advised whether they were awarded contracts starting Oct 1, and yet no further information has been published by HUD.

I had published my state estimates of unit counts and projects on July 4rd showing an estimated total unit count of 1,364,338 units.  

I subsequently went back and looked at the listing of active projects list found in an Excel file on a HUD web page HERE and was able to identify only 1,063,671 units associated with a state identifier (This included adding in Alaska and the Virgin Islands units from my original estimate that were missing from this database). The state distribution of those 1,063,671 units I found with state identifiers are shown in a revised DRAFT listing that I have prepared HERE. 

I then went back to read the FAQ's about the contract found HERE and on page 4 the Q and A reads as follows: 

Q: As of Feb. 28, 2011 (date of Invitation release), the Portfolio of All Active Project-Based Section 8 Contacts database, which was last updated on 12/10/10, identifies the total number of active units as 1,234,135. For purposes of this application submission, we are proceeding using the unit count from the 12/10/10 update. If this is not acceptable, please provide the most recent database numbers.

 A: All applicants should be utilizing the information posted on Portfolio of All Active Project-Based Section 8 Contacts database dated 12/10/10.

So, in the absence of any state specific information from HUD it is not precisely clear what the PBCA unit counts per state [or contractor] are.  

I believe that my revised DRAFT numbers are likely the most accurate state level numbers, but given that they add up to less than the Q and A provided unit count, I readily concede that my revised DRAFT unit counts could be on the low side. (The discrepancy may that that some projects did not have a clear state identifier?).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Half a Billion in HUD Contracts Awarded, 1 Million+ Units in All States; How Come No Media Coverage?

It's always interesting to see what makes news and what doesn't. 

  

Five days ago on Saturday I did my first post HERE about HUD awards of Section 8 contract administration contracts for all states and I have done multiple updates since then confirming these awards and including estimates of project and unit counts by state. 

To date I have seen zero additional coverage of this contract award and I confess it is a complete mystery of why these contract awards are not news:

• They cover more than 1 million units in private ownership.
• The two year contracts are likely worth close to half a BILLION dollars. (HUD had projected $289 million for contract administrators in FY 2012 budget submission).
• It seems likely that HUD will claim savings from these contracts AND translate that into additional families served or dollar savings. 
• They make significant changes in where contracts are administered. NY, NJ, and MD contracts will be administered by a local housing authority in Ohio; Florida contracts will be administered in Georgia and Georgia contracts will be administered in Florida; and several states, including Oregon, will now have out of state contract administrators.

Anyone have any ideas about what am I missing? If so, please add a comment.

Originally created and posted by the Oregon Housing Blog.

UPDATED: FY 2012 HUD Project Based Section 8 Contractor Awards and Estimates for State/Contractor Location of 1.3+Million Project Based Assisted Units, 22,000+ Projects.

UPDATE:
I have done an update, including a revised DRAFT of project and unit counts by state that can be found HERE. 
----------------

I am now satisfied that it is safe to remove the with a grain of salt designation from my prior posts about state changes in HUD Section 8 project based contract administration. I believe the switches I previously posted about WILL in fact happen. 

Further, starting in October I estimate that these new contractors may administer the operation of as many as 1.3 million+ Section 8 units, in 22,000+ projects.

I have prepared a 9 page PDF file HERE with 5 tables that provide detailed information about these new contracts; when you open the file the bookmark pane to the left will allow you to navigate to these individual tables. The tables include:

1.Contract Administrators by State with Some Oddities: This is an alpha listing by state showing the new contract administrator and their state location, an indication whether the contract administrator is in the same state as the project, a count of units and projects, and an indicator whether the contract administrator is a state Housing Finance Agency. Observations/Oddities:  

• 22 states and the Virgin Islands will NOT have a contractor located in a state administer units within that state. 28 states, Puerto Rico, and DC will have an administrator located in their state administer units within that state.(35 contractors for 53 total areas have been identified).
• At least 4 administrators will not administer any units within their states. An Ohio contractor will administer units in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland but no units in Ohio. A contractor in Georgia will administer Florida units but not Georgia units while a Florida contractor will administer units in Georgia but not in Florida, A Texas contractor will administer units in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico, but no units in Texas. (A second Texas based contractor will administer  ONLY units within Texas).
• 25 of the 35 contract administrators are state HFA's (or state housing agencies). However, my back of the envelop calculation indicates that the 10 LOCAL housing agencies chosen as contractors will account for 55% of the units under contract.

2. Listing of 19 States Plus Virgin Islands Without Any Instate Contract Administrators. Observation: This list includes states with relatively large numbers of units like New York, New Jersey, Arizona and Tennessee (list also includes Virgin Islands). Combined these states account for 28% of the estimated unit count. 

3. Listing of 31 States plus DC and Puerto Rico with At Least ONE Contract Administrator. This is a list of 31 states with at least one contractor plus contractors in DC and Puerto Rico. 

4. Unit Ranked Listing of Contract Administrators

This ranking by estimated units shows total estimated units administered by each contract administrator and their share of the estimated total projects and units.  Observations: 7 contractors will administer 50% of the estimated units, and 4 contractors in 2 states will administer 29% of the estimated units.

5. Alpha List of Contractors and Their States. Shows for each of the 35 contractors the state(s) assigned to the contractor with estimated units and projects for each state and a subtotal for each contractor. 

How I Estimated Project and Unit Counts

1. I downloaded the latest HUD MF Assistance and Section 8 Contracts database HERE and after extraction I copied the two tables into Excel. 
2. I used a lookup formula to combine fields from the two tables in this database and filtered the combined table to include only active or executed contracts, and excluded service coordinator funding.  
3. I prepared a pivot table by state showing the count of assisted units for these active/executed contracts. 
4. I extracted property ids and their states from one table and then eliminated duplicate property IDs (this was necessary as the property ID would be repeated if the property had multiple contracts).
5. Using this data, I then did a pivot table by state to arrive at an estimated count of active/executed assisted properties by state.
6. I merged the property count and assisted unit count tables by state.
7. My estimates are likely higher than the actual number of PBCA contracts as HUD likely has and will continue to self administer some of the assisted projects and units. 
   

This was a complex project to put together, if you discover any errors please let me know via email or a comment on this post.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Section 8 Contract Administration: Akron Ohio PHA To Take Over Contract Administration for NY, NJ, and MD?

As I said in earlier post HERE take this with a grain a salt for now , but it appears more likely to me now that an offshoot of an Ohio PHA, the Summit MF Management Corporation, MAY indeed be the new HUD Section 8 contract administrator for New York, New Jersey, and Maryland IF the HUD list HERE is to be believed. 

It seems more likely to me now than yesterday that NY, NY, and MD contract administration has been awarded to this Ohio (Akron) PHA as I did some digging this AM and found the articles of incorporation HERE for this firm from the Ohio Secretary of State Office. The articles clearly state that the corporation:

  ..shall have the ability to conduct its affairs in the State of Ohio and elsewhere, including the states of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, and any other state of the United States of America.

IF this HUD list is accurate, my estimate is that this Ohio PHA would take over HUD Section 8 contract administration for 190,000+ Section 8 units in Maryland, New York, and New Jersey.  That would be a WOW; not as big as LeBron moving to Miami, but still......

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Take with Grain of Salt for Now: Section 8 Contract Adminstration Awards Takes Away Some Areas from CMS, Idaho HFA Picks Up Hawaii?

Buried on HUD web site is a PDF listing HERE of Performance Based Contract awards, with NO date or any other explanation.   

In reviewing the list I note that the Idaho Housing Finance Agency is listed as the contract administration for Hawaii and Utah, while CMS in Bremerton is listed as contract administrator for ONLY Alaska, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington [even that is not clear as list appears to show Wisconsin HFA would be new contract administrator for Washington state and that a Summit MF Housing Corporation from Akron could be the new contract administrator for NY state ....hence the take it with a grain of salt admonition].

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New Section 8 Contract Administrator for Oregon is Division of Bremerton Housing Authority Which Already Administers 75k Units In Multiple States.

Web page for Contract Management Services is HERE. 

Appears CMS is already HUD Section 8 contract administrator for Washington, Nevada, Nebraska, Hawaii, Utah, and Southern California. It is not clear yet whether CMS picked up other states (Idaho?) in addition to Oregon in the latest round of contract administration competition.

"Who we are" web page provides background HERE and brochure HERE provides another view with key staff identified.

Audits Provide Additional Background

A short May 2011 "Accountability Audit" of Housing Authority from Washington State Auditors Office is HERE. From the audit: 

The Housing Authority also runs a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, a public housing project (Tara Heights), three project-based Section 8 housing complexes (The Firs, Tamarack and Bay Vista Commons) and one market rate property (Southcourt). The Housing Authority is in the process of redeveloping the former Westpark Public Housing into a mix of residential and commercial units.
...For fiscal year 2010, the Housing Authority operated on an annual budget of approximately $154 million

CMS Already Administered 75,000+ Section 8 Units

A MUCH more detailed Financial Statement Audit and Federal Fund Audit from Washington State Auditor's Office for May 2011 is HERE. Audit indicates that prior to latest round of competition CMS was HUD Section 8 contract administrator for 75,000+ units: 

In fiscal year 2010 the Housing Authority
processed subsidy payments under this program [Washington, Utah, Nebraska, Nevada, Hawaii?] for 29,512 units. In October of 2009 The Housing Authority contracted with the PBCA LA LOMOD to perform specified PBCA services for Southern California. This added an additional 45,661 units

Originally Created and Posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.