Eileen Fitzgerald
Acting Administrator
Rural Housing Service, USDA
Washington, D.C.
Addressing CARH:
The big news that we have is that our Section 538 Multi-family Housing
Guarantee program NOFA will be published this week. Secretary Glickman
actually announced it last week; he was doing an event for Home Ownership
Week. He found out about it, and he actually personally asked to be able to
announce it in Florida, which he did.
The NOFA is for $74 million and closes August 31. We’re giving you a
little more time this year. By next year, hopefully, we be able to get the
NOFA out by November if we any kind of normal budget cycle. Depending on the
funding level next year, if we have $100 million next year I think we’ll
definitely still need to have a NOFA; if we went up to $200 million, we
would
have to talk to our OGC and see what other options might be possible such as
to do a state by state allocation. Either way, now that the regulation is
Final, it will be much easier for us to get the funding out earlier. I’d
like
particularly to recognize Obie Baker, Carl Wagner, and their staff for
getting the regulation out.
I know it seems really frustrating to you on how long it takes, but that
took a lot of hand holding by us to try to get it through all the different
clearances it has to go through in the Department and OMB to actually get it
out and published. They did a very good job on that.
The 515 program (we had the NOFA for New Construction in March),
depending on the amount for repair and rehabilitation, it is still a little
bit slow. If any of you are involved in that, we are trying to get those
loans obligated so if someone is not going to use that money, we can pass it
on to the next development that needs it. So that is the focus for us for
right now.
Existing Portfolio Issues
We are working diligently with the prepayment and preservation task
force
that CARH is a member of. Of all the issues to educate people about
multi-family housing in rural America, is talking about the fact that we
have
an aging housing stock and that we need to do something to assure that it is
out there (something that is fair and equitable); whether we are talking
about repair and rehab issues or equity loans or tenants, the fact of the
matter is that 60% of our portfolio is now over 15 years old.
Lots of rural communities rely on that housing. Most of it is in fairly
good shape, but we need to have an infusion of resources to keep that out
there, to keep it affordable, and to keep it in the housing stock.
We feel this task force is one way of educating everyone about what
these
issues are. People who know a little bit about housing have all been
somewhat
familiar with HUD’s concern with mark-to-market and all the issues out
there.
And, that is true for certain members of Congress. But, most people are not
at all familiar with the 515 issues that relate to the portfolio. So I think
this is going to be a multi-year effort, but this task force is a good place
to be starting. You can’t just ignore a portfolio and expect it to continue
to be out there, to be in good condition, and that ultimately tenants will
have someplace to live in their community. I hope you help us to educate and
inform everyone about those issues.
Status of Revising 1930-C
One of the things I know a lot of folks are frustrated about, including
us, is our multi-family 3560 regulation. We are committed that it will truly
someday be published.
I think we will have a really good regulation. We now have started the
clearance process; it is a major change in the program. Lots of pieces of
the
regulation are changing; hopefully, all of them for the better, and a lot of
them in ways that many of you have suggested as participants in our
Stakeholder meetings. It has now been in our General Counsel’s office for
about 4 weeks; hopefully, we’ll be able to get it out of there fairly soon
since they’ve been part of the process.
The next steps in the process is that it is going to parts of the
Department and Administration that don’t work with the multi-family housing
program on a daily basis. Even though we have been educating them all along,
it is going to take some time when the Department’s budget people and OMB
all
have to review this regulation. I wish it wasn’t like this, but it is. We
are
going to do everything in our power to try to get it approved as quickly as
possible. We also need you to realize that there are a lot of changes here,
it is a fairly complex program; this means it will take people a little
while. No matter what is happening (I wish it could happen tomorrow), it
will
get out there; we will have a proposed handbook out with it. When the
proposed rule is out there, you will have a handbook that we will consider a
Very Good draft. We won’t make it final because, obviously, we can’t have a
final handbook unless we have a final rule; but, we’re committed to having
both of those out there. I think that will help you understand what this
regulation can possibly do.
I also believe that we talked about virtually all aspects of it last
year, so you won’t find any big surprises in there. We realize that you are
frustrated, or a little frustrated; all I can say is we are very committed
to
doing it. Obie has someone working on it full time basically to make sure it
is getting through all the people that have to see it. It has been a real
education for us in trying to get a number of regulations we have through,
and really making our programs work much more efficiently.
Industry Interface
Finally, I want to touch on our Automation. We are also making a lot of
progress there. Obviously, Industry Interface is being utilized a lot more
around the country. Also, we’re integrating a number of our other systems in
multi-family housing; we hope that will start being evident when we get into
the fall and early winter. There are a number of different phases, but it
will enable our States to manage our program much better; I think that will
benefit you in the long run, particularly as we get to the tenant system
improvements that we are looking at.
We are always looking to hear what your suggestions are and how to
manage
the portfolio better. We hope this can lead us to work in partnership.