New HUD Report Reviews COVID-19 Risk Factors Facing HUD-Assisted Households

Jobs Plus Implementation: This HUD report focuses on the implementation experiences of eight Jobs Plus grantees, and how those PHAs and their partners have structured case management and employment services, providing some insight on best practices for PHAs. The report also covers implementation and recommendations for the earned income disregard as well as strategies for supporting work.
A new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies highlights ongoing affordability challenges among lower-income households, and persistent declines in the availability of low cost rental units. For the fifth year in a row, national rent growth exceeded 3 percent, far outpacing inflation for items other than shelter.
A new HUD and Policy and Economic Research Council (PERC) report, “Potential Impacts of Credit Reporting Public Housing Rental Payment Data,” examines how including public housing rent payments in credit reporting could affect the credit scores of low-income, HUD-assisted individuals. The report details the findings of a joint study that used data from the Seattle Housing Authority, the Housing Authority of Cook County (HACC), and the Louisville Metro Housing Authority.
Last month, HUD released a report on new findings from the Rent Reform Demonstration, a randomized control study examining the effects of new rent rules on families served by four PHAs. Approximately 6,600 families in the voucher program at the Lexington, Louisville, San Antonio, and D.C. Housing Authorities were randomly assigned to existing rent rules in the control group or to new rent rules in the treatment group.
Building off his presentation to 2018 Housing Is Summit attendees, researcher Matthew Morton from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago has released a new policy paper with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH).