Crushing News: Oregon/OHCS Not Selected for Section 8 Contract Administration.

Acting Director's message is HERE. 

Will have BIG financial impact on agency and on Section 8 projects here in Oregon with effective date of October 1, 2011; my heart goes out to OHCS leadership / staff-this is not the way to start the holiday, I'm sure. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

St. Paul Minnesota Section 8 Audit Not Terrible, but Also Not "Above Average".

News story HERE.
Audit is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Preservation Related Bills: Four Bills Would SAVE $260 Billion in 'O8 Appropriations'

Four housing bills with provisions that include help for Section 8 housing preservation efforts have been "scored" by the Congressional Budget Office(CBO).

Led by the FHA reform bill, these four bills would SAVE $260 million in FY 2008 appropriation outlays, according to CBO. Over five years the total appropriation outlay SAVINGS for these four bills would still total $231 million.

The table HERE shows savings/costs for each bill, with each bill number hyperlinked to the detailed CBO cost estimate for that bill.

New MF Contracts Database Update Should Incorporate FY 08 FMR Level Comparisons for First Time.

Thanks to HUD HQ staff for updating the HUD MF Contracts Database. (This may be coincidence but I made an request for that update the the day before). What is most important is that the national MF Contracts Database has been update to 11/27/2007, the first update in two months.

One reason for the two month delay is the need to insert the new final FY 2008 fair market rents effective Oct. 1 for each project and then do calculations of the ratio of current project rents to those new '08 Fair Market Rents. It is quite likely that a flurry of contract adjustments and renewals at the end of the fiscal year may have added additional work to get this new database out the door. HERE is the direct link the HUD page where you can download the database and associated data dictionaries.

As time permits I will be constructing a new Oregon based version of the database with pivot table. Email Subscribers to the Oregon Housing Blog www.oregonhousing.blogstpot.com will know about that update first.

Again, thanks to HUD MF staff in HQS for their efforts in getting this out on a timely basis-its a lot more work than most people realize.