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Oklahoma News |
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 Housing
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HUD Expands Multi-Lingual Website to Help Families Who are Limited English Proficient to Gain Access to HUD Programs
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HUD EXPANDS MULTI-LINGUAL WEBSITE TO HELP FAMILES WHO ARE LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENT TO GAIN ACCESS TO HUD PROGRAMSNew website offers translation of HUD Vital Documents for FreeWASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today unveiled an enhanced website to promote equal access to housing programs by providing important HUD documents in 12 different languages. HUD's expanded Limited English Proficiency (LEP) website features factsheets, housing brochures and other forms in Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Cambodian, Chinese, Farsi, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese, in addition to English.
"When buying or renting a home, obtaining important housing information should not depend on how well people speak English," said John Trasviña, HUD's Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. "This website greatly expands HUD's ability to offer all families access to our programs and services, regardless of the language they speak."
The HUD site offers brochures on fair housing, model lease agreements, information about HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), and a Resident Rights and Responsibilities brochure in various languages. These documents are free to the public.
The LEP website is in response to Executive Order 13166, which requires all federal, local and state agencies that receive federal funding to ensure that people with limited language skills have meaningful access to government programs and services.
"The importance of homeownership and fair housing means HUD must be a leader in this area. HUD will continue our efforts to serve all persons by translating additional vital documents and posting them on the website," said Trasviña.
FHEO and its partners in the Fair Housing Assistance Program investigate approximately 10,500 housing discrimination complaints annually. People who believe they are the victims of housing discrimination should contact HUD at 1 (800) 669-9777 (voice), (800) 927-9275 (TTY). Additional information is available.
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HUD is the nation's housing agency committed to sustaining homeownership; creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans; and supporting the homeless, elderly, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS. The Department also promotes economic and community development and enforces the nation's fair housing laws. More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and espanol.hud.gov.
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U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - 06/30/2009 |
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FEMA Rent Subsidy Program for Hurrine Katrina Victimes Get Extra Time
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Tuesday February 10, 2009, 10:04 PM
The Obama administration is giving a temporary reprieve to the estimated 31,000 families that are scheduled to lose their rental subsidies Feb. 28 under the federal Disaster Housing Assistance Program.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Tuesday that he has decided that there must be a transition period, the details of which are still being worked out, because the agency won't be able to process housing vouchers for all eligible families. As of last week, the Housing Authority of New Orleans had processed only a few hundred vouchers even though more than 4,000 had been allotted for renters terminated by DHAP.
Donovan also plans to extend eligibility for permanent vouchers to all DHAP renters whose incomes fall below HUD's usual Section 8 income limits. The Bush administration had decided to give vouchers only to the elderly, disabled or extremely low-income families.
"Thank you, Jesus!" said New Orleans Legal Assistance housing-law attorney Laura Tuggle, as she heard of Donovan's decision. Tuggle represents several dozen elderly and disabled DHAP renters, all of whom are eligible for vouchers but are struggling to complete the conversion process ahead of the deadline.
"The time was too tight to transition thousands and thousands of families, " she said. She said she hoped that housing authorities and tenants would work together to enroll all voucher-eligible families so that no one will be left without housing when the transition period ends. "We really need to use this time wisely to make sure we have a smooth landing, " she said.
Donovan said that HUD might need some additional financing from Congress to extend the program to all those who meet the income requirements, which he believes could qualify half the 31,000. If HUD uses its standard Section 8 income requirements, vouchers will be offered to working-poor households earning up to 50 percent of an area's median income. In the New Orleans area, a four-person household making up to $29,900 would now qualify, whereas under the Bush administration standard, a four-person household could earn only up to $17,950.
A little extra time
But all 31,000 families, including those that have been paying up to $600 a month in rent because their incomes didn't qualify for full federal rent subsidies, would get some additional time to work out alternative housing beyond the current Feb. 28 deadline. The extra time also helps moderate-income New Orleans homeowners such as Clarence White, who earns too much to qualify for a voucher but can't afford rent on top of his $1,200 monthly mortgage payment for his half-rebuilt Gentilly home, he said.
About 15,000 of the households served by the program live in the New Orleans area, where many eligible Section 8 families have long lived without even a chance at a voucher. At the time Hurricane Katrina hit, the Housing Authority of New Orleans had a Section 8 waiting list that was more than 10,000 names long. The housing authority last accepted new applicants for that list in July 2001.
Donovan said he is working with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and other members of Congress to gain additional financing for the program, and the response might determine how much additional time HUD will provide.
Landrieu said she had a positive meeting with Donovan on Tuesday and expected to have things resolved in the next few days.
"The Bush administration had made a decision to provide vouchers only to vulnerable families -- elderly, disabled and extremely low-income, " Donovan said. "There's a whole group of other families that are eligible for the permanent voucher program that they were not planning to cover. I made a decision to make vouchers available to every eligible family."
'It's fantastic'
He said he also quickly determined that HUD had not provided enough time to get vouchers to affected families soon enough for the end of the DHAP program.
"We've got to find some transition for those families that will allow them not to be put at risk because HUD hadn't moved quickly enough to put vouchers in their hands, " Donovan said.
Terrol Williams was evacuated from New Orleans after Katrina and, after a short stint at the Washington, D.C., Armory, has been living at an apartment complex near Capitol Hill ever since. There are about 15 New Orleanians living there, all of whom depend on DHAP to help pay their rent, according to Williams.
"This is great news for sure, " Williams said of Donovan's announcement.
Josh Bruno, president of Metrowide Apartments in New Orleans, said that he had 150 DHAP tenants in buildings he owned. Before Tuesday's reprieve, many had no way to pay March rent.
"We had a whole lot of people who didn't know where they were going to go, " he said. Some were homeowners who'd been fleeced by unscrupulous contractors and others had been working but were laid off because of the poor economy.
"The last thing we wanted to do was massive evictions, " Bruno said, applauding Donovan's decision. "It's fantastic and, really, what's needed."
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Bruce Alpert & Katy Recdahl, the Times-Picayune - 02/12/2009 |
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Fannie Mae to Halt Evictions in Foreclosures
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NEW YORK, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Fannie Mae said on Monday it will allow tenants to remain in their homes and avoid eviction even if the building's landlo...
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Reuters - 12/18/2008 |
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Fannie Mae to End Tenant Evictions in Foreclosures
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Story by Kelly Evans Wall Street Journal Fannie Mae is finalizing a national policy that will allow tenants to remain in their homes even if their landlord goes into foreclosure -- a landmark decision for tenants. The policy will be in effect Jan. 9, Fannie Mae said Sunday, and reflects growing pressure on the mortgage company from a legal-aid group that threatened to sue over recent evictions. The company said it will also ensure its current holiday moratorium on new evictions is being followed until the new policy takes effect. "We're delighted that Fannie Mae has agreed to change their policy," said Amy Marx, an attorney with New Haven Legal Assistance in Connecticut. "And we're hopeful others will follow suit." In late November Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they would suspend tenant evictions temporarily during the year-end holidays. New Haven Legal Assistance said that despite the pledge, Fannie Mae was proceeding with more than a dozen new eviction cases in Connecticut. The advocacy group said the evictions would violate legislation passed earlier this year to rescue the two mortgage-finance giants that required them "to permit bona fide tenants who are current on their rent to remain in their homes under the terms of their lease." In his letter Sunday to the New Haven group, Fannie Mae General Counsel Curtis Lu wrote: "As far as we know, this will be the first nationwide program of its kind." Copies of the letter were sent to Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking committee and Barney Frank (D., Mass.), House Financial Services Committee chairman. Freddie Mac hasn't announced a similar policy reversal, though a spokesperson said they are "currently evaluating additional actions." The decision by the government-backed mortgage giants represents just a slice of the market and excludes many properties purchased with riskier loans that are now falling into foreclosure. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, however, are uniquely structured to be able to address the issue, which effectively now has them acting as a type of landlord or property-management company to administer month-to-month leases to renters of their foreclosed properties. Ted Meyer, a spokesman for Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest trustees of mortgage-backed securities, said Deutsche Bank isn't in a position to be able to follow Fannie's lead on foreclosures. Deutsche Bank has no capacity to intervene, Mr. Meyer indicated, saying "the whole issue comes down to ownership" of the foreclosed properties. A given property "is held in trust by us but it is effectively owned by the hundreds or thousands of people that own a tiny sliver of mortgages in any one pool," Mr. Meyer said. It might fall to the local servicers of the mortgages to decide to halt evictions, he added, because they are responsible for steps such as hiring real-estate agents to put foreclosed properties on the market. It isn't clear how much power -- or will -- a servicing company has to effect a moratorium on tenant evictions. It's a frustrating situation, says David Rothstein, a researcher at nonprofit group Policy Matters Ohio who has looked at the effect of such evictions in his state. "When there's a renter in these properties they're less likely to be vandalized, they're better maintained, and it's better for the communities," he said. In a recent report Mr. Rothstein found foreclosure filings on renter-occupied units in Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, were up 29% in 2007 from the previous year. The average cost of an eviction per family ran about $2,500 -- meaning a total $10 million loss of wealth, Mr. Rothstein said. The social and economic pain of eviction has made the subject a regional cause more than a national one. That in turn has made it difficult for groups to marshal the political muscle to enact state or federal legislation barring tenant evictions in foreclosures. A New York University study found at least 15,000 renter households in New York City were affected by foreclosure last year. Since then, the number likely has increased. In the Boston area, a group of Harvard University students has been going door to door notifying tenants of their rights in an eviction; many such tenants are unaware of their rights and accept "cash for keys" offers from lenders -- often $500 or $1,000 -- to leave. "We had seen the devastating impacts of Fannie Mae offering cash for keys to tenants and evicting most of the rest," Ms. Marx said. "We eagerly await the implementation of the new policies."
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Wall Street Journal - 12/15/2008 |
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Your Rights as a Residential Tenant in Green Country
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Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:00 pm by Kaci Christian, FOX23.com, Tulsa OK- The hot water heater leaks. Now, your carpet's soaking wet. The toilet ove...
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Fox23.com - 11/17/2008 |
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