HUD has three major rental programs that collectively provide rental subsidies to approximately 4.5 million households nationwide. These programs are the Section 8 Voucher program, the public housing program and multifamily HUD-assisted rental programs with project-based Section 8 rental assistance. Each of these programs has its own set of challenges and opportunities related to resident participation.

There are a number of HUD programs and policies that help support the participation of all public housing residents.

Annual Plan Process and Formation of Resident Advisory Boards. Opportunity for resident participation can be found in the annual planning process in which most PHAs are required to engage. In 1998, Congress passed the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act (QHWRA). Under this law, most of the nation's public housing authorities must develop annual and five-year management plans, collectively referred to as the Public Housing Authority Plan (PHA Plan). The annual PHA Plan is designed to govern how public housing agencies operate in a given fiscal year by spelling out what the PHAs policies will be in specific areas (i.e., rent, pet policy, admissions and occupancy). The five-year PHA Plan describes the PHA's overall mission in addressing the housing needs of low income families in its jurisdiction. As part of this planning process, housing agencies are required to have Resident Advisory Boards (RABs) to assist in the development of these PHA Plans. RABs consist of residents who are elected to represent the population served by the housing agency. By law, housing agencies must provide RABs with "reasonable resources" to enable them to function effectively and independently of the housing agency. In some parts of the country, as a way of increasing their organizing power, site-based resident councils have come together to form citywide and even statewide resident councils.

Right to Organize Regulations. The Code of Federal Regulations guarantees residents the right to organize a resident council to represent their interests and defines what constitutes a duly-elected (or democratically established) resident organization, and defines HUD's obligation, along with housing agencies, to support resident participation activities through training and other activities.

Resident Commissioners. The law also mandates that every PHA, with a few exceptions, have at least one person (either a public housing resident or voucher holder) assisted by the agency on its governing board. HUD's rule governing the appointment of resident commissioners states that residents on boards should be treated no differently than non-residents.

Funding for Resident Participation. Most PHAs are required to include in their annual operating budget an amount totaling $25 per occupied unit per year to fund resident participation. The funding may be used to support training, resident organizing and other activities. PHAs are required to pass these funds through to resident councils to enable them to design site-based programs and activities.

Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency (ROSS) Program. The Resident Opportunities and Self Sufficiency Program (ROSS) is a program designed to link public housing residents with supportive services, resident empowerment activities and other assistance in becoming self-sufficient. Grants under the ROSS program can be made to PHA's, resident management associations, resident councils, resident organizations, intermediary resident organizations and other nonprofit entities operating as associations or networks that administer programs that benefit resident organizations. A multitude of initiatives for residents can be part of such grants.

Despite regulatory gains that allow more tenant participation, HUD is attacking such progress by drastically reducing funding for resident participation. In FY05, the ROSS program was funded at $52.5 million. In the final FY06 HUD budget, the funding level for the ROSS program was $38 million. The President requested only $24 million for FY07. Funding for ROSS in FY07 will be determined by the FY07 joint funding resolution (see section on FY07 joint funding resolution).

Also, the House passed H.R. 3422, the Small Public Housing Authority Act, originally introduced by Representative Randy Neugebauer (R-TX). Senator John Sununu (R-NH) introduced companion legislation in the Senate (S. 2707).

Following the 1998 Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act (QHWRA), all PHAs were to submit annual and five-year plans to HUD on 18 items, such as rent determinations, demolition and disposition, civil rights and affirmatively furthering fair housing, grievance procedures and capital improvement needs. QHWRA also set up detailed requirements for resident participation in these plans.

In 2003, HUD streamlined the annual and five-year plan requirements for small PHAs, those with fewer than 250 public housing units but with any number of voucher units. H.R. 3422 would go further, exempting PHAs with a combined total of fewer than 250 public housing and voucher units from every annual plan requirement except the civil rights certification. In effect, this would exempt 57% of all PHAs from 17 of the 18 plan requirements. The 57% of PHAs represent 6.5% of the nation's public housing and voucher units (205,654 of the nation's 3,181,476 units). As a way to keep some resident participation requirements, the bill requires PHAs to establish RABs and provides for public hearings to consider changes to a PHA's goals, objectives and policies.

Senator Sununu's bill would exempt PHAs administering 43% of the nation's public housing units and 50% of the nation's vouchers from the streamlined annual plan requirements issued in 2004. In S. 2707, a PHA would only have to hold an annual hearing to discuss any changes to its goals, policies and objectives. Both H.R. 3422 and S. 2707 would require that PHAs annually certify to HUD compliance with civil rights, fair housing and other federal laws that forbid discrimination. Both are expected to be reintroduced in 2007.

The NLIHC Board of Directors voted to oppose H.R. 3422 and S. 2707 because they detract from the ability of residents to have knowledge of, and participate in, changes impacting their housing. For example, the legislation would require no resident participation in changes to a PHA's demolition and disposition plans even if those plans differ from the five-year PHA plans submitted to HUD.

It is likely that some version of the Small Public Housing Authority Act will be reintroduced in the 110^th Congress.

Resident organizations and other advocates should express their strong support for keeping current PHA Plan and Resident Commissioner requirements in place for all PHAs. Periodic threats to the resident commissioners also surface as PHAs, especially state housing finance agencies that are also PHAs, attempt to create additional exemptions from the requirement.

On the funding side, residents and advocates should push for increases in the Public Housing Operating Fund (see Public Housing). Advocates should contact their Members of Congress about the drastic cuts to the ROSS programs and ask that future funding proposals at least flat fund the program at the FY05 funding levels, since such funds support critical resident self-sufficiency training, employment readiness, homeownership opportunities and independent living for the elderly/disabled and other resident services.

At the local level, advocates can take full advantage of favorable rules and policies by making sure there is a tenant commissioner informed about the issues and an effective RAB, as well as by applying for ROSS grants.

Despite an unprecedented level of tenant organizing in privately-owned, HUD-assisted housing over the past 15 years, most HUD tenants remain unorganized and unaware of the rights, opportunities and policies that affect them. In other instances, when tenants have attempted to organize and assert their rights they have been met with resistance by owners and their management agents. It is important to know that tenants do have avenues through which they can affect the policies and rules that regulate their housing.

Tenants' Right to Organize.

There are regulations in place which require owners to recognize tenant unions or organizing committees that meet regularly, are democratic and are "completely independent" of owners and management agents. These regulations recognize the right of tenants to leaflet, door-knock, post notices and convene meetings without management present and without prior notice to or permission from management.

Residents also can invite outside organizers to assist them. HUD-funded organizers have the right to go into a building without a tenant invitation to help residents organize.

In addition:

·      HUD has published a brochure which clarifies that tenants have the right to organize free of management harassment or retaliation. This brochure must be distributed annually to all HUD tenants.

·      HUD's Model Lease, which is applicable to all HUD tenants, explicitly refers to the Right to Organize regulations.

·      The Management Agent Handbook requires that owners recognize tenant unions and specifies management practices that would violate tenants' rights and potentially create liability for HUD-imposed sanctions.

·      The Civil Monetary Penalties regulation allows HUD to assess fines on owners or management agents for egregious violations of tenants' right to organize.

Over the years, Congress and HUD have also expanded the formal process for tenant participation in decisions affecting HUD housing.

·      Owners are now required to provide a one-year notice to tenants of their decisions on whether or not to renew an expiring project-based Section 8 contract. In addition, owners are required to provide a notice to tenants between five and nine months prior to a decision to prepay a HUD-subsidized mortgage.

·      Tenants of properties with HUD-insured mortgages subject to HUD rent regulation are to be notified by owners of their intent to increase rents 60 days before the rent increase is to go into effect and are allowed to comment on the proposal to the owner and HUD.

·      When owners choose to go into HUD's Mark-to-Market program, HUD's contract agency is also required to notify tenants prior to a first and second tenant meeting to allow tenants to comment on the owner's plans to rehabilitate the building and change the financing.

·      Tenants in buildings owned by HUD or under HUD foreclosure are to be notified by HUD of pending auctions or sales of their buildings, enabling tenants to submit purchase offers as a nonprofit or limited-equity cooperative or to support purchase by others.

Funding for Resident Participation (OTAG and ITAG grants and VISTA program).

For several years, Congress provided funds to help tenants organize, primarily to understand and influence the future of their homes when the Section 8 contract expires. In response, HUD created the Outreach and Training Grant (OTAG) and Intermediary Technical Assistance Grant (ITAG) programs in 1994, to provide three-year grants to locally-based tenant organizing projects or nonprofit organizations to "organize the unorganized" tenants at the city or state level. Congress authorized HUD to spend up to $10 million annually from Section 8 funding for this purpose.

The administration of these grants became a problem because most local OTAG and ITAG organizations found it difficult to do their work due to HUD's own administrative misdeeds, subsequent congressionally-mandated audits by the Inspector General (IG) and HUD's audit resolution practices. In late March 2003, after the IG released its audit results for the 40 OTAG and ITAG grantees, HUD suspended the funding for most of the groups. Congress failed to take any effective action to counter HUD's practices.

Advocates should talk with their Members of Congress about the importance of tenant participation and the role tenants can play in preserving affordable housing. Tenant participation laws and policies need support from both Congress and HUD, with appropriate funding.

There are approximately two million households that receive tenant-based assistance through the Housing Choice Voucher Program. While the President's requested FY07 budget request increases Section 8 funding by a little more than $500 million, it maintains the practice of basing each PHA's voucher funding on outdated data. This approach will mean the continued loss of housing choice vouchers in FY07.

In addition, through both the appropriations and authorizing processes, the Administration continues to threaten to eliminate many tenant protections and any guarantees that the Section 8 program will serve the neediest families.

Organizing Residents in Section 8.

Section 8 voucher holders are among the most difficult residents to organize because the nature of the voucher program is such that households receiving this type of subsidy (renting in the private market) are less likely to be in direct proximity or contact with each other. At the local level, voucher participants play a key role in the formation of policies. PHAs make many policy determinations affecting voucher holders such as the priority given to homeless individuals, families fleeing domestic violence, working families and those with limited English-speaking capability, as well as resident preferences, admissions criteria, the amount of time that a voucher holder will have to search for a unit, minimum rents, homeownership program development and similar priorities and policies. Rules about RABs (see the public housing section above) also apply to voucher holders. As such, voucher holders can play an integral role in setting the agenda for local PHAs. Indeed, it is the advent of the PHA planning process and the requirement that voucher holders be included on RABs that offers an excellent platform from which to organize voucher holders to have a voice.

Defeating any proposal to restructure the voucher program is likely to require voucher holders, public housing agencies and other advocates to work cooperatively. Housing advocates could bring these groups together on the local level. As a coalition, these groups can let their Members of Congress know their opposition to any proposal that will radically restructure the voucher program.