CLPHA Press Room

On October 11, HUD re-published the Operations Notice for the Expansion of the Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration Program for a 45-day comment period. HUD originally published the latest version of the Operations Notice last week, but without the accompanying appendix of waivers that will be available to the 100 incoming new agencies.

HUD also published the Notice of Proposed Information Collection for the MTW Supplement to the PHA Plan, for a 60-day comment period. Unlike existing MTW agencies, incoming MTW agencies will be required under the Operations Notice to submit both an MTW Supplement and a standard PHA Annual Plan. You can find the MTW Supplement form here. 

We will be reaching out to members soon with more details and analysis. We will also be submitting comments on both of these HUD notices and will share those with members in advance of the comment deadline.

The Operations Notice establishes the requirements for the implementation and continued operation of the expansion of the MTW demonstration, following its authorization in the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act. HUD has previously released earlier versions of the Operations Notice in January and May of 2017. CLPHA’s comments on prior versions expressed serious concerns that the Operations Notice essentially created a new and separate MTW program; one that re-regulated the program and included increased and unnecessary burden and oversight for housing authorities. Current MTWs have been operating successfully under their individual agreements without an Operations Notice for 20 years; while we are still reviewing the Notice, we are concerned that an Operations Notice will only restrict what new MTWs can do compared to existing ones by limiting the waivers PHAs may implement.

The new Notice does respond to some of our comments by including: the removal of the 90 percent voucher utilization requirement, the inclusion of safe harbors, and the streamlining of the General and Conditional Waivers in a single waiver category.

Additional major changes to the Notice include:

• The terms of participation have been set at 12 years from the year of designation. In the previous Notice, HUD had set an expiration date of 2028, regardless of year of designation.
• General and Conditional Waiver categories have been removed and replaced with a single MTW Waivers category, which MTW agencies can implement without further approval from HUD.
• The Notice now includes safe harbors, which are defined as the additional requirements, beyond those specified in the activity description, that the agency must follow in implementing activities without further HUD approval.
• MTW Waivers now include specific guidance on impact analyses, hardship policies, and applicability of waivers to elderly/disabled families.
• The 90 percent voucher utilization requirement was removed. The MTW Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) Renewal Formula has been revised to use as a base, all prior-year MTW-eligible Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) funding expenses paid from HAP, including HAP expenses plus non-HAP expenses.
• For a prospective agency to be eligible for selection to the MTW demonstration, it must be a high performer in either the Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS) or the Section Eight Management Assessment Program (SEMAP).
• Regionalization was removed from the MTW Operations Notice and will be implemented through a separate forthcoming notice.
• Agencies will formalize their MTW status with an amendment to their Annual Contributions Contract.
• The monitoring of the requirement that an MTW agency designated pursuant to the 2016 MTW Expansion Statute continues to assist substantially the same number of families has been simplified. Compliance will be determined using a baseline ratio of total public housing and HCV HAP funding to families served.

If you have any questions on the Operations Notice, MTW Supplement, or MTW expansion, please contact CLPHA Research & Policy Analyst Nicole Barrett, nbarrett@clpha.org, 202-638-1300.

Today, HUD published the latest version of the Operations Notice for the Expansion of the Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration Program for a 45-day comment period.  The Operations Notice establishes the requirements for the implementation and continued operation of the expansion of the MTW demonstration, following its authorization in the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act. HUD has previously released earlier versions of the Operations Notice in January and May of 2017.  CLPHA’s comments on prior versions expressed serious concerns that the Operations Notice essentially created a new and separate MTW program; one that re-regulated the program and included increased and unnecessary burden and oversight for housing authorities.

Current MTWs have been operating successfully under their individual agreements without an Operations Notice for 20 years; while we are still reviewing the Notice, we are concerned that an Operations Notice will only restrict what new MTWs can do compared to existing ones by limiting the waivers PHAs may implement.

The new Notice does respond to some of our comments by including:  the removal of the 90 percent voucher utilization requirement, the inclusion of safe harbors, and the streamlining of the General and Conditional Waivers in a single waiver category.

Additional major changes to the Notice include:

• The terms of participation have been set at 12 years from the year of designation. In the previous Notice, HUD had set an expiration date of 2028, regardless of year of designation.
• General and Conditional Waiver categories have been removed and replaced with a single MTW Waivers category, which MTW agencies can implement without further approval from HUD.
• The Notice now includes safe harbors, which are defined as the additional requirements, beyond those specified in the activity description, that the agency must follow in implementing activities without further HUD approval.
• MTW Waivers now include specific guidance on impact analyses, hardship policies, and applicability of waivers to elderly/disabled families.
• The 90 percent voucher utilization requirement was removed. The MTW Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) Renewal Formula has been revised to use as a base, all prior-year MTW-eligible Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) funding expenses paid from HAP, including HAP expenses plus non-HAP expenses.
• For a prospective agency to be eligible for selection to the MTW demonstration, it must be a high performer in either the Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS) or the Section Eight Management Assessment Program (SEMAP).
• Regionalization was removed from the MTW Operations Notice and will be implemented through a separate forthcoming notice.
• Agencies will formalize their MTW status with an amendment to their Annual Contributions Contract.
• The monitoring of the requirement that an MTW agency designated pursuant to the 2016 MTW Expansion Statute continues to assist substantially the same number of families has been simplified. Compliance will be determined using a baseline ratio of total public housing and HCV HAP funding to families served.

We will be reaching out to Members soon with more details and analysis. We will also be submitting comments and will share those with members in advance of the comment deadline. If you have any questions on the Operations Notice or MTW expansion, please contact CLPHA staff member Nicole Barrett, nbarrett@clpha.org, 202-638-1300.

On Friday, September 28, the President signed HR 6157, an appropriations conference report which funds the Departments of Defense; Labor; and Health and Human Services for FY19, and includes a continuing resolution (CR) to extend funding for HUD and all other departments and agencies at FY18 levels until December 7.

After the conference report was signed, the House and Senate Appropriations committees issued statements addressing the CR and ongoing negotiations for the remaining FY19 funding bills. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL), took pains to note:

“This conference report contains a continuing resolution to account for the appropriations bills not yet signed into law. I want to stress that my colleagues should not read this as a sign that we have reached an impasse with the House on the remaining bills now in conference. To the contrary, we are very close to an agreement on four additional bills – Interior, Financial Services, Transportation [HUD], and Agriculture. While we still have differences to resolve on each of the bills, none of them are insurmountable, in my judgement. So we will continue to work diligently, and hopefully return to the floor soon with yet another conference report in hand.”

Since members of the House of Representatives also took the occasion to informally recess on Sept. 28 (except for pro forma sessions), further formal action on a full FY19 HUD funding bill is unlikely until after the mid-term elections.

Contact CLPHA Legislative Director Gerard Holder with questions at gholder@clpha.org.