Recently in HUD programs Category

Seniors face aging issues with their houses and condos.  They must make decisions about what needs to be remodeled, and how to pay for it -- and for seniors that is usually more complicated than for people with full time jobs.  Reverse mortgages have become available as one tool.  But local and state programs also make loans available through affordable housing programs to help seniors remodel for energy efficiency, weatherization and major repairs such as roofing, plumbing and window replacement.

According to the AARP, the lowest cost reverse mortgages are public loans.

The least expensive reverse mortgages are the ones offered by state or local governments. But these "public sector" loans generally can be used for only a specific purpose, like home repairs. Many are only available to persons with low to moderate incomes. But the low cost can make these loans very attractive.

Energy Efficiency and Weatherization

Remodeling projects or home maintenance projects of significant sizes, such as major plumbing upgrades, or energy efficient window replacement or a new roof, can warrant using equity in your home.   These major home renovations can improve the quality of life for a senior at the same time they reduce monthly energy bills and improve the value of the home. 

Deferred Payment Loans (DPLs)

Many local and some state government agencies offer "deferred payment loans" (DPLs) for repairing or improving your home. This type of reverse mortgage gives you a one-time, lump sum advance. No repayment is required for as long as you live in your home.

Property Tax Deferral (PTD)

Some state and local government agencies offer "property tax deferral" (PTD) loans. This type of public sector reverse mortgage generally provides annual loan advances that can be used only to pay your property taxes. No repayment is required for as long as you live in your home.

According to a 2007 AARP study, some type of PTD program is available in parts or all of the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia.

AARP does not endorse any reverse mortgage lender or product -- so do your homework and ask a trusted financal advisor for help in analyzing your situation and the reverse mortgages available to you.

Read more at AARP about Low-Cost Public Loans

Infill development is a new strategy intended to reduce municipal costs as well as environmental damage caused by rampant, uncontrolled urban sprawl into rural and wilderness areas.  In California, it is especially important because of our reputation for fires, floods and droughts!  The escalating population is being felt keenly in Southern California in particular -- but also across the state as the global population escalates out of control, and as rural populations decrease and urban populations increase.

The following issues from an Infill Development strategy meeting illustrate the issues that are being researched, weighted and parsed ... and are the issues many cities around the country will be facing in the coming months or years.

A bi-partisan effort in California worked over 18 months  to develop housing infill issues on the ballot among a host of infrastructure measures that include these key concepts:

• that site eligibility be determined according to density thresholds appropriate to urban/suburban/rural jurisdictions;
• that developers be allowed to apply for the funding (in addition to local government entities);
• that a list of delineated housing-related infrastructure uses beyond water, sewer, and utilities be incorporated into the legislation (including brownfield clean-up, demolition, public transit linkages attributable to new housing);
• that a minimum affordability threshold of 15% be established (as there had been no affordability provision in the ballot language);
• that funding be allocated proportionally across the diverse regions of the state, that ownership and rental housing be eligible for funding,
• that there be a distinction between 'infill areas' and 'infill projects';
• that there be a series of ranking criteria created to guide the application selection process (including density, affordability, proximity to transit, and local support/leverage)

Funding is always at the heart of community issues, and infill development is no different.  Infill Development Set-Aside funds are being debated and distributed among public, nonprofit and private builders. 

Applicant Eligibility
With respect to the possibility of private housing developers applying for this set-aside funding,
some participants worried that the infrastructure grants could be 'give-aways' to housing projects that may well be feasible without this subsidy.  There was agreement that the funding should be awarded to those projects for whom the unusual infrastructure needs represent the primary impediment to development.

 
Parking Issues

As public transportation and transit corridor development is being encouraged by cities, there was considerable discussion for when costs associated with parking infrastructure should be included as an eligible use. Whereas one convenient rule of thumb that only replacement public parking be eligible, some developers expressed their concern that often times the amount of housing they are permitted to develop on a site is directly related to how much parking they can provide. Providing on-site parking presents substantial cost implications for which these developers see this infill set-aside funding as being appropriate.


Affordability

There is discussion about how best to encourage affordability beyond the minimum 15% threshold. For some non-profit developers, the mixed-income focus of the funding seems to deviate from the message of the PROP 1C campaign to assist low- and very-low income households; others supported the mixed-income approach saying that without this kind of public leverage market-rate developers are not tackling difficult sites that are otherwise located conveniently to jobs and transit.

One concept mentioned in meetings with legislators was to perhaps consider an 'affordability cap' whereby point for affordability under the ranking criteria would not accrue beyond, say, 40% of a project's total units. The thinking behind this was that developers interested in mixed-income housing scenarios may do tax-exempt bond deals electing to set aside 20% of the units at 50% AMI or 40% of the units up to 60% AMI. The 'cap' would not be intended to discourage 100% affordable infill projects from applying for the funding but such projects would not have a competitive advantage beyond a 40% set aside for tax credit affordability.


Prevailing Wage Requirements

While there was little doubt that the use of these infill set-aside funds would trigger prevailing wage requirements, of particular interest is that guidelines make clear that the funding is limited to the housing-related infrastructure component itself. As in the period following the implementation of the 2003 prevailing wage requirements, participants agreed that a challenge to the applicability of prevailing wage for an entire project will likely be forthcoming.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced that $4 million is available to improve methods to detect and control lead-based paint, mold and other housing-related safety hazards that harm children. These grants will be awarded competitively to multiple Academic and non-profit institutions, State, Tribal or local governments that advance the recognition and control of residential health and safety hazards or improve our understanding of the link between housing and health.

"Anything HUD can do to continue to improve the methods for protecting our children from dangerous home hazards is crucial to American families, their children and their future," said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. "Investing in healthy homes is not only good for health reasons, but good for the environment and the economy as well."

These grants will further the implementation of HUD's Healthy Homes Strategic Plan, and the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Healthy Homes, both recently released, which encourage government agencies, other research organizations, and scientists to develop and support a portfolio of rigorous healthy homes research. In addition, both documents recommend that agencies and sectors work together to provide guidance and technical assistance to support safe, healthy, and environmentally friendly housing options.

HUD will award approximately six to ten grants ranging from $250,000 to $800,000 each. Applications may be downloaded from the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control's Website. The application provides instructions, including submitting proposals by Federal Express (FedEx), United Parcel Services (UPS) and overnight Express Mail delivery services. The deadline for receiving grants is 5:00 PM eastern time, August 18, 2009.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will offer rental assistance to 4,000 non-elderly families with disabilities, including 1,000 vouchers specifically targeted to those transitioning out of nursing homes and other care facilities. Through its funding notice, HUD is seeking comment from public housing authorities and others to ensure this critically needed assistance is distributed and administered in the most effective manner possible.

Today's announcement coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Olmstead v. L.C. & E.W. which affirmed the rights of individuals with disabilities to live independently. To commemorate this landmark decision, President Obama declared 2009 the Year of Community Living.

"We also recognize how important it is for HUD and HHS to coordinate our resources to enable community-living for those individuals that live with disabilities."

HUD's Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) will make $30 million in voucher assistance available to support approximately 4,000 Housing Choice Vouchers for non-elderly disabled families.

HUD is making a 1,000 of those vouchers available specifically for individuals transitioning out of nursing homes and other institutions.

These vouchers directly support a $1.75 billion initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to help persons who reside in health care settings move to community-based living. While HHS' Money Follows the Person (MFP) program offers health care, case management and other services to qualified families, it does not include funding for housing. HUD's funding initiative is designed to fill that gap.

The remaining 3,000 Housing Choice Vouchers are available to assist any non-elderly disabled family. The Department is encouraging local housing authorities to give strong consideration to using some or all of these vouchers to provide housing for those non-elderly persons that are living in the community, but are at-risk for institutionalization.

More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and espanol.hud.gov.

In July of 2007 HUD introduced its Green Initiative, a nationwide pilot initiative to encourage owners and purchasers of affordable, multifamily properties to rehabilitate and operate their properties using sustainable Green Building principles.

Green Building and Healthy Housing Concepts

These principles comprise sustainability, energy efficiency, recycling, and indoor air quality, and incorporate the "Healthy Housing" approach pioneered by HUD.

The Green Initiative will focus on properties within HUD's Section 8 portfolio, specifically properties in the Mark to Market (M2M) Program administered by the Office of Affordable Housing Preservation (OAHP).

What is Green Building?

The real estate industry, including the housing industry (and more particularly the affordable housing industry), is undergoing a fundamental shift toward Green Building principles.

Green Building is designed to result in a property that reduces its impact on the environment, costs less to operate, and improves the residents' quality of life.

Green building considerations start with site selection and include building placement and design, materials and techniques used in construction, and all the systems, appliances, and fixtures within the building. Wikipedia provides a good working definition for the OAHP Green Initiative:

• Green building is the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings and their sites use and harvest energy, water, and materials, and reducing building impacts on human health and the environment, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal - the complete building life cycle.

To date, the focus of green initiatives has been on new construction rather than on rehab, particularly  moderate rehab that is associated with M2M properties.

There are fewer opportunities to Go Green in rehab, but the opportunities are  significant, particularly when viewed in the context of the M2M standard 20-year schedule of property repairs and replacements.

Green Rehab Benefits

Green rehab practices should result in lower utility costs that benefit HUD as well as residents and lower environmental impact. When rehab is performed in a manner that meets both Green and Healthy Housing principles, residents will benefit from

• lower utility costs
• improved indoor air quality
• lower risk of pest infestations
• lower levels of allergens
• reduced risk of mold-related illness

Why apply Green principles in the M2M Program?

The M2M Program offers a unique platform for establishing a Green Initiative in the HUD affordable housing portfolio because it can be implemented within existing statutes, regulations, and authorities.

M2M provides opportunities to implement Green Building principles in a representative sample of M2M restructurings involving properties that are already undergoing rehabilitation.

As HUD's primary housing preservation tool since its creation in 1997, OAHP has restructured more than 1,600 projects nationwide through the M2M program. These projects are privately owned, HUD-subsidized (through Section 8), multifamily properties, with approx 100 units each, on average.

In addition to rehabilitating properties, M2M also resizes and restructures property debt to account for market rent levels, to pay for rehabilitation and 20 years' of estimated repairs and replacements, and to establish a financially viable project for the long term.

M2M provides an opportunity to test the impact of Green and Healthy Housing principles in the existing HUD-subsidized multifamily inventory by providing modest incentives to owners and purchasers to perform needed rehab and maintenance using Green alternatives, and to collect ongoing data to validate impacts on utility consumption and indoor air quality.

In developing the Green Initiative, OAHP has consulted with several industry experts, and their participation has been invaluable in the development of this outline. By launching the Green Initiative through M2M, HUD has the opportunity to continue to work with industry leaders to shape both the future of HUD's efforts and of the Greening of affordable housing in this country.

MORE INFO: http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/omhar/paes/greenini.cfm