Affordable Housing

In a reminder to affordable housing providers sent on Aug. 14, HUD’s Multifamily Housing team emphasized existing rules around tenant organizing. Specifically, HUD reiterated that affordable housing communities subsidized through project-based Section 8, Section 202, and other HUD rental assistance programs are required to make community spaces available for meetings when requested by tenant organizations. Additional rules for tenant organizing in HUD-assisted Multifamily Housing, as well as information about a recent HUD funding opportunity to support capacity building of tenant organizations, is available here.

On June 15, HUD announced and shared the final Inspection Standards for its new inspection protocol, the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE). The final NSPIRE Inspection Standards will be published soon in the Federal Register. LeadingAge has worked with HUD for years as it developed NSPIRE, which will be implemented on July 1 for the public housing and voucher programs and on October 1 for multifamily programs, including Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance and Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly. The June 15 Inspection Standards are one of three subordinate notices to the May 11, 2023, NSPIRE final rule; the other two, one on Scoring and one an Administrative notice, are forthcoming. The June 15 NSPIRE final Inspection Standards represent HUD’s years-long effort to consolidate and align housing quality requirements and associated inspection Standards across programs. LeadingAge has commented to HUD at every step of NSPIRE’s development. After developing and testing draft Standards and receiving public comment on prior versions of the Standards, HUD’s June 15 final NSPIRE physical Inspection Standards accompany HUD’s May 11 final rule. Read more about the final Inspection Standards in this article.

Join LeadingAge national’s Affordable Housing Member Network on Monday’s, from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. for our regular housing call. Participation in the network is open to all members of LeadingAge; for details on joining the network, contact Juliana (JBilowich@leadingage.org) or Linda (LCouch@leadingage.org).