Bipartisan Senate Bill Aims to Plug Holes in Key Section 8 Program
The Choice in Affordable Housing Act was introduced in the Senate on May 20 with bipartisan support and backing from both housing advocates and housing providers, ranging from Habitat for Humanity to the National Multifamily Housing Council. If enacted, the legislation would invest $500 million in HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program, with one goal being increased participation by private-market landlords.
The Act’s sponsors say the HCV program helps more than five million low-income people, including the elderly and people with disabilities, in a total of 2.3 million households. The program is administered by local public housing agencies (PHAs), and families that receive a voucher pay 30% of household income toward rent and utilities while the PHA pays the landlord the remaining rent.
An increase in landlord participation, which has been declining in recent years, could increase the options for voucher holders. At present, say bill sponsors Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND), “voucher holders experience a difficult housing search process.”
NMHC has long maintained that the Section 8 HCV program could be the nation’s most effective affordable housing and community development tool. However, the council says the program is “plagued with inefficiencies, onerous regulatory requirements and a flawed funding system. For years, NMHC has advocated to lawmakers that it is imperative we address these issues to attract private housing providers’ participation in this voluntary program.”
Although important reforms were included in the NMHC-supported Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA) signed into law in 2016, “the Choice in Affordable Housing Act would address many overlapping and redundant programmatic procedures that have deterred professional owners and operators from participating,” NMHC says.
Among the other provisions, the new Act would:
• Provide $500 million to create a housing partnership fund that would permit voucher administrators to provide signing bonuses to landlords in low-poverty areas and help with security deposits;
• Increase funding to the Tribal HUD-VASH program;
• Expand upon the 2016 Small Area Fair Market Rents rule by requiring the use of neighborhood-specific data to set rents fairly;
• Reduce inspection delays by not requiring units in buildings financed by other federal housing programs to undergo a separate inspection if the unit has been inspected in the past, and allowing landlords to request a pre-inspection prior to selecting a voucher-holding resident; and
• Refocus HUD’s evaluation of housing agencies by reforming HUD’s annual?evaluation?of PHAs to promote an increased neighborhood diversity.
- ◦Financing
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