HUD Notice Waives HUD Regulations/Procedures for Hurricane Sandy

An un-numbered HUD Notice issued today by Carol Galante, Acting Assistant Secretary for Housing, allows properties in areas declared by President Obama to be federal disaster areas as a result of Hurricane Sandy, to quickly apply for Special Claims for uninhabitable units, for December 2012 and January 2013.

Project-based Section 8 properties can receive 80% of the contract rent for these two months, and must submit a separate Request Form for each month being claimed. The Form can be downloaded from: Request to Exercise Option to Receive Vacancy Claims Sandy Disaster1126.doc Forms must be submitted within 2 weeks of determining these funds are needed, or as soon as possible.

When a Request Form is received by the Hub Director, s/he will verify that the listed units are, in fact, uninhabitable, via phone and/or physical assessment. Once verified, s/he will approve the request and send the form on to HUD Headquarters for tracking.

Owners with Business Interruption Insurance who may receive vacancy payments for the same time period for the same units will have to decide whether to receive vacancy claims under this Notice, or whether to receive insurance payments – they cannot get both.

If you have a project-based Section 8 resident whose unit is uninhabitable, management can temporarily lease a unit in another building. Owners can sign a temporary lease on behalf of the displaced resident, and voucher for the contract rent for the temporary unit. The owner will pay the contract rent on the temporary unit until the resident’s unit has been restored; then the owner will notify the resident that s/he can return. The resident must pay his/her Tenant Rent for the temporary unit. For more information on these “pass-through payments”, see Housing Handbook 4350.1, Chapter 38.

For more information, contact Catherine Brennan, Director, Office of Housing Assistance and Grant Administration, Department of HUD, 451 Seventh Street, SW, Room 6138, Washington, DC 20410, (202) 708-3000.