NMA Blog

We know time is valuable, and we will save you tons! NMA’s PIH Alert, one of our most helpful services for the affordable housing industry, allows public housing agencies (PHAs) and housing professionals to stay current with HUD’s new regulations, notices, and guidance—without having to worry about finding it yourself.

In this constantly changing industry, it is crucial that PHAs are always up to date and adhere to rules and standards, but this is not an easy task. There are so many HUD websites that are hard to navigate and very difficult to understand. That is why we do the job for you! Every day, we search through several housing industry websites and resources to provide you with all the information you need, saving you many hours of research.

When you subscribe to NMA's PIH Alert, you will receive a daily email with a brief summary of each new regulation, notice, guidance, tool, webcast statement, act of Congress, and everything else that involves the public housing and HCV programs as they are released. This summary also provides you the links to the relevant information for each item. Additionally, every Friday, you will receive “FAQ Friday,” a PIH Alert section that includes one frequently asked question (FAQ) regarding PIH program administration submitted by our subscribers.

Another great and very popular feature of our PIH Alert is a monthly email that summarizes the most important articles of the past four weeks, so we make sure you don’t miss anything. You will also have access to the PIH Alert archives when you need to refer to a past article.

Our customers, staff, trainers, and consultants go over the PIH Alert every day to get the latest housing industry updates as well. If you work in the affordable housing industry, you can’t miss out on the PIH Alert. Use your time wisely; we will do the hard work for you.

In a Federal Register notice this week, HUD requested comments on a planned two-year continuation of the Uniform Physical Condition Standards for Vouchers (UPCS-V) demonstration. According to the notice, the extension is necessary in order to meet congressional instructions to implement a single inspection protocol for public housing and voucher units.

HUD’s new physical inspection model will be the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE). NSPIRE is intended to improve upon the current Uniform Physical Condition Standards (UPCS) protocol by prioritizing health, safety, and functional defects. As the notice explains:

HUD is developing a single inspection standard for all units under the public housing, housing choice voucher, and multifamily programs called National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE). NSPIRE will leverage the infrastructure of UPCS–V to demonstrate, test, and validate NSPIRE protocols. HUD envisions NSPIRE being used for all housing inspections.

The UPCS-V demonstration began in 2016 and currently includes more than 200 PHAs. As described in the notice, the UPCS-V demonstration extension is necessary to avoid requiring participating agencies to default to HQS standards, to gather additional data, and to allow increased PHA participation. Comments are due by July 29.

In a press release posted Thursday March 28, HUD announced that it has settled a familial status discrimination complaint against the owners and managers of a California rental property.

The housing providers allegedly violated the Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent a unit to a couple because they have three children. The Fair Housing Act prohibits housing providers from denying or limiting housing to families with children.

The case came to HUD’s attention when a HUD Fair Housing Initiatives Program agency filed a complaint on behalf of the couple, alleging that the family was denied the opportunity to rent a two-bedroom unit because they have children.

Under the terms of the conciliation agreement, the owners and manager will pay $10,000 to the couple and $5,000 to the fair housing agency. In addition, the agreement requires that the management company revise its policies and that its employees attend annual fair housing training for the next three years.

Make sure you're up to date on all Fair Housing policies.

HUD’s Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) has established a new website with information about planned changes to its physical housing inspection model. The new model, National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE), is intended to improve upon the current Uniform Physical Condition Standards (UPCS) protocol by prioritizing health, safety, and functional defects.

As a first step in revising inspection requirements, HUD published Notice PIH 2019-02/H 2019-04 on February 22. The notice reduced the advance notification time for REAC inspections to 14 days. HUD then began a nationwide series of listening sessions on the new inspection model.

Resources available on the NSPIRE website include a description of the NSPIRE concept and learning materials from the listening sessions held in Philadelphia and Fort Worth.

A two-year, voluntary demonstration of the NSPIRE protocol is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of fiscal year 2019. REAC will publish a notice on the demonstration at a later date. Recommendations on the new model and demonstration may be submitted to NSPIRE@hud.gov.

On March 25, HUD’s Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) issued Inspector Notice 2019-01 establishing guidance for inspectors on performing a data collection process to determine the prevalence of carbon monoxide detectors at properties subject to inspection under the Uniform Physical Condition Standards (UPCS) protocol.

The notice does not require the presence of carbon monoxide detectors, nor does the absence of such detectors affect a property’s UPCS score—noting the presence or absence of such detectors is for data collection purposes only. The specific procedures required for inspectors to collect data can be found on page 2 of the notice. As the notice explains, this data collection is part of the department’s efforts to support decent, safe, and sanitary housing that is in good repair, and REAC’s commitment to continuous improvement of physical inspection standards.

In a press release posted Thursday March 28, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it has filed a charge of housing discrimination against Facebook.

The charge alleges that the policies and practices of Facebook violate the Fair Housing Act by allowing landlords and home sellers to use its advertising platform to engage in housing discrimination.

Today’s announcement follows HUD’s filing of a Secretary-initiated complaint in August 2018. HUD alleges that Facebook unlawfully discriminates based on race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex, and disability by restricting who can view housing-related ads on Facebook’s platforms and across the internet. Further, HUD claims Facebook mines extensive data about its users and then uses those data to determine which of its users view housing-related ads based, in part, on these protected characteristics.

According to HUD’s charge, Facebook enabled advertisers to exclude people whom Facebook classified as parents, non-American-born, non-Christian, interested in accessibility, interested in Hispanic culture, or a wide variety of other interests that closely align with the Fair Housing Act’s protected classes.

HUD is also charging that Facebook enabled advertisers to exclude people based upon their neighborhood by drawing a red line around those neighborhoods on a map. Facebook also allegedly gave advertisers the option of showing ads only to men or only to women.

“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”