Title
Resolution to Amend the Administrative Plan Regarding Chapter 4: Applications, Waiting List, and Tenant Selection.
Memorandum
The Ann Arbor Housing Commission (AAHC) is required to maintain a waiting list of families who are interested in Housing Choice Voucher program. Per regulation the AAHC must describe in the Administrative Plan the method for selecting applicant families from the waiting list, including the system of admission preferences that the PHA will use.
The AAHC currently establishes the following preference for the Housing Choice Voucher Program: residents of Washtenaw County, disabled applicants, homeless applicants, and applicants who have been involuntary displaced.
Staff recommend, the board adopt a preference for admission of single persons who are age 62 or older. Adding this preference would allow qualifying households to reside in units exclusively serving elderly families.
Current PHA Policy related to Local Preferences
PART III: SELECTION FOR HCV ASSISTANCE
4-III.B. SELECTION AND HCV FUNDING SOURCES
Local Preferences [24 CFR 982.207; HCV p. 4-16]
PHAs are permitted to establish local preferences, and to give priority to serving families that meet those criteria. HUD specifically authorizes and places restrictions on certain types of local preferences. HUD also permits the PHA to establish other local preferences, at its discretion. Any local preferences established must be consistent with the PHA plan and the consolidated plan, and must be based on local housing needs and priorities that can be documented by generally accepted data sources.
PHA Policy
The PHA will not establish a preference for a special category of families where targeted funding has been received. The PHA will create a preference specifically for homeless people who are referred by a partnering homeless service organization or consortia of organizations. The PHA may limit the number of applicants that may qualify for a particular preference. The PHA will use the following local preferences:
1. Local Preferences
i. Insufficient Funding: The PHA will offer a preference to any family that has been terminated from its HCV program due to insufficient program funding.
ii. PBV: Families who have been living the in the PBV unit for one year or more requesting to move with continued tenant-based rental assistance.
The PHA will first assist families that have been terminated from the HCV program due to insufficient funding and then assist families that qualify for the VAWA preference.
2. Residency Preference: Applicants living (renting, in a homeless shelter, or transitional housing), working (or notified that they have been hired to work) or attending a post-secondary educational facility within Washtenaw County at the time of application, shall be given a preference over those who are not living, working, attending a post-secondary educational facility in Washtenaw County.
3. Disability Preference:
Households that include a person with disabilities has one or more of the following:
A. A disability as defined in section 223 of the Social Security Act.
B. A physical, mental, or emotional impairment, which is expected to be of long-continued and indefinite duration, substantially impedes his or her ability to live independently, and is of such a nature that such ability could be improved by more suitable housing conditions.
C. A developmental disability as defined in section 102 of the Developmental Disabilities
D. Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. • Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or any condition that arises from the etiologic agent for AIDS.
4. Homeless Preference:
A. Tenants qualifying under the MSHDA's Medicaid Super Utilizer/Homeless Frequent Emergency Department Users with Care Needs will be referred through MSHDA's data match system using HMIS and Medicaid systems.
B. Involuntary Displacement
Proposed PHA Policy Recommend Adding Elderly as a Local Preference
Local Preferences [24 CFR 982.207; HCV p. 4-16]
5. Elderly Preference:
PBV Units exclusively serving elderly families.
A. The term elderly family is defined in 24 CFR §5.403 as follows: “Elderly family means a family whose head (including co-head), spouse, or sole member is a person who is at least 62 years of age. It may include two or more persons who are at least 62 years of age living together, or one or more persons who are at least 62 years of age living with one or more live-in aides.”
B. Units for elderly families. Units that are exclusively made available to elderly families are excepted from the project cap.
...Staff
Prepared by: Weneshia Brand, Director of Operations
Approved by: Jennifer Hall, Executive Director
Body
WHEREAS, The Ann Arbor Housing Commission's Housing Choice Voucher Administrative Plan details its policies and procedures for the management of its Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program; and
WHEREAS, The AAHC is permitted to establish local preference and give priority to serving families that meet those criteria; and
WHEREAS, The AAHC Administrative Plan currently established Residency, Disabled, Homeless, and Involuntary Displacement as a preference; and
WHEREAS, The AAHC recommends that the board amend the Administrative Plan to include the additional preference “Elderly” for families to reside in units exclusively serving elderly households 62 and older; and
RESOLVED, that the Board of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission approve the revisions to the Administrative Plan as described in the memorandum above to take effect July 1, 2020.