Sneak Preview: HUD Proposes HOME Program Regulation Revisions
(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants Compliance Expert article.) The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently proposed to streamline the program requirements for the HOME Investment Partnership Program (24 C.F.R. Part 92) — the first significant update to the program regulations in more than a decade — to better align them with other federal housing programs and implement recent amendments to the HOME statute.
Authorized by title II of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act (Pub. L. 101-625), the HOME program provides grants to state and local governments, and consortia of local jurisdictions, and is used, often in partnership with local nonprofit groups, to fund a wide range of activities to build, buy or rehabilitate affordable housing for rent or homeownership, or to fund direct rental assistance to low-income people.
HOME program funds are awarded annually as formula grants to participating jurisdictions (PJs). After HUD obligates funds to a PJ, it establishes a HOME Investment Trust Fund that provides a line of credit that the PJ may draw upon as needed.
Each year, the program allocates about $1.5 billion among states and some 600 local jurisdictions. In federal fiscal year 2023, PJs completed 6,848 rental housing units and 4,051 homebuyer units, assisted 2,717 low-income homeowners to repair their homes, and provided tenant-based rental assistance to 13,016 low-income households.
HUD proposed significant revisions to the community housing development organization (CHDO) requirements, including the definition of a CHDO. For example, the agency would revise language within the definitions at §92.2 to state that a CHDO is a private nonprofit organization that has “a demonstrated capacity for carrying out housing projects assisted with federal funds, low-income housing credits, or local and state affordable housing funds. To satisfy this requirement and demonstrate capacity as a developer of a HOME-assisted project, the nonprofit organization must have employees or volunteers with housing development experience who will work directly on the HOME-assisted project. If a nonprofit organization is demonstrating capacity using a volunteer's experience, the volunteer must serve as a board member or officer of the nonprofit organization, and the volunteer may not be compensated by or have their services donated by another organization. For its first year of funding as a CHDO, an organization may satisfy this requirement through a contract with a consultant who has housing development experience to train appropriate key staff of the organization.”
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
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