Housing Choice Vouchers

HUD Notice 2022-31 increases the total amount of funding available for new Mainstream Vouchers to $48 million, an increase of $8 million. No new applications for Mainstream Vouchers are being received through this notice.

This funding increase builds on two prior funding increases for Mainstream Vouchers, as CLPHA has covered. HUD used authority provided by the CARES Act to use Mainstream carryover funding from prior appropriations to non-competitively award $35 million in new Mainstream Vouchers, as noted in PIH Notice 2022-07. Additionally, PIH Notice 2022-19 further increased available Mainstream Voucher funding from $35 million to $40 million.

View PIH Notice 2022-31 

CLPHA submitted comments to HUD on its proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Fair Market Rents for the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV), Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program, and Other Programs for the Fiscal Year 2023. Every year, HUD calculates and sets Fair Market Rents (FMRs) that go into effect on October 1 for many HUD programs. FMRs are an estimate of the amount of money that households need to cover gross rents (combined rent and utility expenses) to rent 40 percent of the rental housing units in their community or more commonly known as “40th Percentile Rents.” In prior years, HUD has calculated Fair Market Rents (FMRs) using a seven-step process that incorporates rental data from the American Community Survey (ACS) to estimate recent mover rents.

Late last year, the Census Bureau announced that it would not publish 1-year ACS data due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on data collection and concerns with data integrity. For FY2023, HUD is implementing a longstanding CLPHA recommendation to incorporate the use of private sector rental data into its FMR calculations to address the temporary data availability challenge and better aligns FMRs with current rental market conditions. Because rents have risen so quickly during the pandemic, HUD stated that FY2023 FMRs will increase by an average of 10 percent, but metropolitan areas with recent large rent spikes will observe much greater FMR increases. This trend has been observed among CLPHA members where FY2023 FMRs have increased 10 percent from FY2022, with some areas experiencing growth rates up to 19 percent.

In addition to supporting HUD’s use of private sector rental data to augment the FMR calculation methodology, CLPHA made the following recommendations:

• HUD should utilize private data sources in its methodology for calculating FMRs in FY2023 and in subsequent FMR calculations after FY2023.
• HUD should observe the impacts of the use of private sector rental data beyond FY2023 and transparently report on its use in FMR calculations.
• HUD should provide additional funding for FMR reevaluations.
• HUD should reconsider its use of 40th Percentile Rent Limits.