Apr 11 -- The Office of the Policy Development and Research, HUD invites comments to OMB by May 15, 2023 regarding its plans to conduct a new Capital Needs Assessment of Public Housing. [Comments are due 30 days after submission to OMB on April 14.]
The Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is proposing the collection of information for the Capital Needs Assessment of Public Housing.
Public housing serves the housing needs of low- and very-low-income households, including needy families, the elderly, and the disabled. In the United States, public housing is owned and managed by public housing authorities (PHAs), which are units of state and local government. Public housing is nonetheless heavily subsidized and regulated by HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing through the Operating Fund, Capital Fund, and other means. The capital needs of public housing have a direct bearing on HUD's Capital Fund budget and its support to PHAs for using alternative means of financing to meet those needs.
The number of public housing developments and units in the United States and the number of PHAs that own and manage public housing developments and units have changed over time. According to the most recent HUD data, there are 2,780 PHAs that own and manage 940,330 units in 6,523 public housing developments.
The public housing Capital Fund provides funds for the capital and management activities of PHAs as authorized under section 9 of the Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437g) (the Act). Capital needs are defined by section 9(d)(1) of the Act, as codified at 24 CFR part 905, with Section 200 listing eligible activities. These activities include, among others, the development, financing, and modernization of public housing, vacancy reduction, nonroutine maintenance, and planned code compliance. This work is intended to bring each PHA's projects up to applicable modernization and energy conservation standards.
This Federal Register Notice provides an opportunity to comment on the information collection for the capital needs assessment (CNA) of public housing.
After OMB approval of the Paperwork Reduction Act package, HUD and its contractor will administer a web-based survey to a sample of approximately 300 PHAs to collect data on their CNA estimates, their practices to arrive at those estimates, and their use of those estimates.
After analyzing the data from the first survey of PHAs, HUD and its contractor will administer a second web-based survey of another 500 PHAs. This survey will ask many of the same questions as the first survey. Both surveys will provide data that, when combined with HUD's other data sources, will be used to estimate the capital needs of public housing following an iterative and duplicable approach.
Both surveys also include questions about the processes that PHAs use to assess their capital needs. Based on responses to those questions, the study will assess PHAs' processes to see how they compare to in-person data collection methods used in previous CNAs and industry best practices.
The purpose of this assessment is to better understand if a non-inspection-based approach can yield reliable and valid results that are comparable to those in the past studies, if not better.
HUD Public Housing:
https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/ph
HUD submission to OMB:
https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewICR?ref_nbr=202207-2528-004 Click IC List for information collection instrument, View Supporting Statement for technical documentation. Submit comments through this webpage.
FRN:
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-07533
For AEA members wishing to submit comments, "A Primer on How to Respond to Calls for Comment on Federal Data Collections" is available at
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=5806