Summary of HCV Landlord Listening Sessions Published

[1/29/2020 – Links to the summary have been updated to reference an updated version of the summary. The original summary has been removed from HUD’s website.]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has published a summary of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program landlord listening sessions it conducted in late 2018. The summary lists the qualities of the HCV program which both attract and drive off landlords from participating in the program. A brief outline of them is presented below.

• Qualities of the HCV program that attract landlords:
  • National;
    • Helping people who need housing;
    • Receiving a stable, reliable source of income from HUD;
  • Regional;
    • Required by law in some jurisdictions to accept vouchers; and
    • Existence of damage mitigation programs which help landlords repair tenant-caused damages;
• Qualities of the HCV program that drive off landlords:
  • National;
    • No single point of contact for landlords and other communication deficiencies;
    • Inspections;
      • Delays in the inspection process;
      • Lack of consistency between inspections;
      • Not being informed of changed appointment times by inspectors;
      • Too few inspectors;
      • Not being informed of cancelled appointments in a timely manner;
    • Tenant damages;
      • Lacking a mechanism of collecting on tenant-caused damages;
      • Lacking a way to remove damage-causing tenants;
      • Requirements to repair a unit;
      • Unknown tenant-caused damages cause units to fail inspections;
    • Application and Move-in;
      • Concerns about
        • approved rent amounts;
        • length of time for application approval; and
        • inspections;
    • Voucher and Approved Rent amount;
      • Lack of clarity about required amenities and conditions of units;
      • Fair Market Rents (FMRs) not keeping pace with the local market;
    • Administrative delays;
      • Lack of being able to submit paperwork electronically;
      • Lack of staff that could approve cases during holidays and vacation times;
  • Regional;
    • Confusion over widely varying rent amounts in areas that use Small Area FMRs;
    • Annoyance at the different paperwork and rules for each PHA, in areas where there are multiple PHAs with overlapping jurisdictions;
    • Cumbersome process to access damage mitigation funds in those areas which use them; and
    • The requirement to treat voucher holders differently by requiring a one-year lease initially, when the norm in the market is month-to-month leases.

While the causes of landlord dissatisfaction are multi-faceted and may vary by jurisdiction, NAHRO believes that fully funding the administrative fee account will help PHAs address many of these issues.

The above is a brief outline of the report and excludes details for added brevity. The full summary can be found here.