CARH’S BROADCAST E-MAIL – Regulatory Update

March 18, 2016

On March 15, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) posted a draft Housing Notice for the Multifamily Family Self-Sufficiency (MF FSS) Program to the Multifamily Housing Drafting Table. The Department will receive feedback on the draft through March 30, 2016.  The Notice can be found on the Drafting Table by clicking here.

MF FSS is a HUD program that enables families living in multifamily assisted housing to increase their earned income and reduce their dependence on public assistance programs. MF FSS promotes the development of local strategies to coordinate the use of HUD rental assistance programs with public and private resources, to enable eligible families to achieve economic independence and self-sufficiency.

Family Self-Sufficiency was previously restricted to Public Housing and Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) participants. However, HUD’s Appropriations Act of 2015 allows owners of privately owned multifamily property with a section 8 contract to voluntarily make a Family Self-Sufficiency program available to assisted tenants in accordance with procedures established by the Secretary, including those procedures permitting tenants to accrue escrow funds in accordance with section 23(d)(2) of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 (the Act) and shall allow owners to use funding from residual receipt accounts to hire coordinators for their own Family Self-Sufficiency program.

CARH will be providing feedback on the draft Notice. If you would like to submit your suggestions to CARH directly to be considered in CARH’s final submission, please submit your feedback to carh@carh.org no later than March 25, 2016.

Please contact the CARH national office at carh@carh.org or 703-837-9001 should you have any questions or concerns.