My Submitted Comments on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Proposed Regulation.

Comments are due by Tuesday September 17th; I submitted my comment on Thursday. (Docket folder for this proposed regulation is HERE).

My MS Word comment letter is on my SkyDrive HERE, and embedded below: 



Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog

HUD Behind Schedule, Again.

In prior post HERE I reported the planned "Mid January" roll out of a new HUD funded Housing Transportation Affordability portal. This mid January date was an extension of a previously planned December 2012 roll out date. 

Were now at mid March, 90 days past mid December and 60 days past mid January, and the portal has not yet been announced and no updated date is provided on HUD's related website HERE. 

HUD NOFA on Time Performance Lagging
HUD acknowledges in its Summary of Performance report HERE that it badly missed its target of obligating 90% of NOFA's within 180 days of budget enactment, obligating only 46% of NOFA's within 180 days for funding enacted in FY 2012.

Glaring HUD Regulatory On Time Performance Lag Example
HUD's most glaring missed schedule is for it's proposed affirmatively furthering fair housing regulation, yet to arrive nearing 3 and 1/2 years after the initial target date of November 2009. (See prior post HERE). 

If I could offer a piece of advice that I learned, sometimes painfully, in my 30+ years at HUD it is:

 " UNDER promise, OVER deliver". 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Publishes Proposed Fair Housing Disparate Impact Regs.

Tomorrow HUD will publish in Federal Register a proposed rule to implement the Fair Housing Act’s Discriminatory Effects Standard; the public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed rule. The rule will be available for comment on the www.regulations.gov website

The advance copy of the rule available on Tuesday is HERE (this link may not work after Tuesday; look in tomorrow's Federal Register for the final version of the proposed rule).

From the proposed rule:

The purpose of this proposed rule...is to establish uniform standards for determining when a housing practice with a discriminatory effect violates the Fair Housing Act....This proposed rule establishes a uniform standard of liability for facially neutral housing practices that have a discriminatory effect. Under this rule, liability is determined by a burdenshifting approach. The plaintiff or complainant first must bear the burden of proving its prima facie case of either disparate impact or perpetuation of segregation, after which the burden shifts to the defendant or respondent to prove that the challenged practice has a necessary and manifest relationship to one or more of the defendant’s or respondent’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory interests. If the defendant or respondent satisfies its burden, the plaintiff or complainant may still establish liability by demonstrating that these legitimate nondiscriminatory interests could be served by a policy or decision that produces a less discriminatory effect.

My June 2011 post with some related background can be found HERE. My post from last week HERE has materials from a disparate impact fair housing case recently accepted by the Supreme Court.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Mixed Finance Section 202 and 811 Proposed Rule at OMB for Review.

OMB reg review page for this proposed rule, received from HUD on Oct 27, is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Organizations Urge HUD to Move on Regulations, Including Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.

NLIHC M2M story HERE.  Letter referenced in story is HERE.

Signers of the letter include: 

Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
National Alliance to End Homelessness
National Housing Trust
National Housing Law Project
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Poverty & Race Research Action Council

In addition to Affirmatively Furthering reg, letter also mentions Disparate Treatment FH reg; OBM has completed their review on September 28th of that reg while HUD has yet to submit the Affirmatively Futhering reg to OMB for review. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Regulatory Waivers Link Updated with 2nd Quarter 2011 Waivers.

Link in right pane of Blog for CY 2011 HUD Waivers has been updated to include 2nd quarter 2011 HUD waivers. 

Other HUD waiver links in right pane include all HUD waivers from CY 2010, and CY's 2006-2009. 

I believe this is the only consolidated web posting you will find of these 6 years of HUD waivers.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Posting of HUD Waivers Starts 6th Year.

In right pane I have added a new link for HUD Waivers CY 2011, which begins with Federal Register publication today of 1st quarter CY 2011 HUD regulatory waivers. 

This new link joins previously posted links in the right pane for CY 2010 and CY 2006-CY 2009 waivers.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Waivers Updated Through 3rd Quarter 2010.

I have updated my HUD Waivers: CY 2010 link in the right pane; it includes regulatory waivers granted in the first, second, and third quarter of 2010. 

The right pane also includes a separate link in the right pane to historical HUD waivers covering CY 2006-2009.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Semi Annual Regulatory Agenda Coming out Monday; Sneak Peak at Description of the Two HUD Priority Regs.

The Unified Semi Annual Regulatory Agenda for most federal agencies is now scheduled for publication in the Federal Register and on RegInfo on Monday, December 20th.  

While detailed information about HUD regulatory accomplishments and plans will not be available until then, I was able to extract HUD's two designated Regulatory Priorities in the document I created HERE. 

The two  HUD "regulatory priorities" relate to 

1. Housing Counseling and 

2. Energy Retrofit Loans:

HUD will issue a rule that reflects the authority of HUD’s new Office of Housing Counseling.

This proposed rule would amend HUD’s regulations for the title I Property Improvement Loan Insurance program .. to better assist qualified borrowers obtain low cost loans for specified energy improvements.

Early next week I hope to be able to publish a complete list of HUD regulatory actions, similar to my posts on the Spring Semi Annual Regulatory Agenda HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

OMB Has PH Capital Fund Proposed Rule for Regulatory Review.

Could be months before they complete review; URL is here:
http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201004&RIN=2577-AC50

Updated: HUD's Spring 2010 Semi-Annual Regulatory Agenda Includes 63 Regulatory Actions.

Update: I added a Timetable (planned) date column to the far right in the PDF listing of HUD Spring 2010 regulatory actions I created HERE; list is sorted from most distant date to oldest date .
------------
Agencies have published today (April 27th) their Spring 2010 Semi Annual Regulatory Agendas.

While many agencies publish their semi annual agendas in the Federal Register, HUD has not recently done so.

From a separate Unified Agenda web site, I have constructed a PDF file HERE with links to the details of 63 regulatory actions found in the Spring 2010 Semi Annual Regulatory Agenda for HUD. (A sortable list on line is available from Unified Agenda web site HERE and HUD's Spring 2010 preamble is HERE).

(My post about HUD's Fall 2009 Regulatory Agenda with 60 items is HERE).

One Quick Comparison: HUD Pushes Way Back a Date for Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing PROPOSED Rule.
In comparing the details in the Agenda from Fall 09 to Spring 10, I note that HUD has significantly pushed back the expected date for a notice of proposed rule making for an affirmatively furthering fair housing rule. Previously the expected date was Feb 2010, and now the date is December 2010. (It would take years for any rule to go into effect after that date, as the December 2010 date is only for a proposed rule).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Administration Seeks Public Input on Reform of the Housing Finance System.

It took a while for this to get to the Federal Register but the Administration has opened the window for public comments on the reform of the housing finance system.

The Federal Register notice is HERE. Comments are due NLT July 21, 2010; the submit comment page for this item on the Regulations.gov website is HERE. (Note that you can see comments from others as they are made from this website, go to the view docket folder link HERE to see comments as they are posted. ).

PS: I will take the over on an over/under bet of 250 comments by the July deadline.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Administration Seeks Public Input on Reform of the Housing Finance System; House Hearing Also.

Treasury PR is HERE. (Some public forums around country; also public comments can be submitted through Regulations.gov, I will update with link to docket once Notice is published).

House Hearing today, web page HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.