Los Angeles Office of Public Housing
Quarterly Newsletter Issue 14: January 2012
Serving Southern California

HACoLA Section 3 Pilot

On December 9, 2011, John Trasviña, HUD Assistant Secretary, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, and Congressional Representative Judy Chu, met with the Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles to kick off a new Section 3 Pilot.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is initiating a Section 3 Business Registry pilot program in Los Angeles and four other metropolitan areas (Washington D.C., New Orleans, Detroit, and Miami). Through this new registry, businesses that hire low-income individuals, or are composed of low-income individuals, will be able to have better access to information about contracting opportunities with housing authorities, local governments and other HUD-funded entities. The pilot registry will also make it easy for workers to find out about Section 3 companies.

HUD Designated EIV Superstars

Congratulations to the 33 Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) with zero (0) tenants reported on the Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) System's Deceased Tenants Report and/or Identity Verification Report as of September 30, 2011 that were identified by HUD Headquarters.

These are HUD-designated PHA stars for Quarter 4 of 2011:

CA008 Kern Count
CA009 Upland Housing Authority
CA021 Santa Barbara County
CA022 Needles
CA027 Riverside County
CA031 Oxnard Housing Authority
CA032 Port Hueneme Housing Authority
CA046 Wasco Apts.
CA050 Paso Robles
CA071 Compton
CA077 Carlsbad Housing Agency
CA082 Inglewood
CA092 Ventura County
CA093 Santa Ana Housing Authority
CA103 Redondo Beach
CA104 Anaheim Housing Authority
CA105 Burbank
CA108 San Diego County
CA110 Culver City
CA114 Glendale
CA117 Pico Rivera
CA118 Norwalk
CA120 Baldwin Park
CA123 Pomona Housing Authority
CA132 Oceanside
CA135 Lakewood
CA137 Paramount
CA138 Lawndale
CA139 Lomita
CA143 Imperial Valley Hsg Authority
CA145 West Hollywood
CA147 Santa Fe Springs
CA155 Encinitas

ARRA Success Story: Kern County Housing Authority uses ARRA funds for Mixed Use Development

On November 2, 2011, Housing Authority of the County of Kern staff, Los Angeles HUD Field Office Staff and community dignitaries celebrated the grand opening of the Baker Street Village mixed-use development. Located in the historic Old Town Kern area of Bakersfield, Baker Street Village started as a retail/condominium redevelopment project. Construction halted in early 2009 when the developer lost financing due to the downturn in the housing market. The Bakersfield Redevelopment Association (RDA) then approached the Housing Authority to take over the development. Within six months, the Housing Authority was awarded a competitive $8 million HUD American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant to finance project completion. Because construction had already started, the original design was retained with the condominiums turned into affordable rental housing. Baker Street Village features 24 three-bedroom townhomes, 13 one-bedroom lofts and nearly 10,000 sq. ft. of community and commercial space. This one of a kind Public Housing development now provides quality affordable housing and space for community services and retail development in Bakersfield.

VASH at Work: HACoLA Houses Veterans

December 16, 2011 marked the official opening of Westside Residences II, which adds 196 units of affordable housing for formerly homeless veterans, including 48 SROs that share a common living and dining area; 148 studio apartments; a parking structure; and a landscaped terrace.

The project includes 50 project-based HUD-VASH units from the Housing Authority of the County of Los Angeles. Rehabilitation, job training, counseling, and educational services are provided by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. VETS. Westside Residence Hall has served more than 8,000 veterans, delivering more than 2 million nights of stay, since 1993. With the addition of Westside Residences II, approximately 450 formerly homeless veterans will call Westside home.

Guest speakers included The Hon. Harry Pregerson, U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth District and founder of U.S. VETS; Eduardo Cabrera, Regional Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness; Ray Brewer, L.A. Director, U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development; Michelle Wildly, Chief, Community Care, Veterans Administration, Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System; and Emilio Salas, Deputy Director, L.A. County Housing Authority.

PIH Notice 2011-65

Timely Reporting Requirements of the Family Report (form HUD-50058 and form HUD- 50058 MTW) into the Public and Indian Housing Information Center (PIC)

The purpose of this notice that was published November 30, 2011, is to extend Notice PIH 2010-25 (with a significant revision to section 4.A. and minor changes to section 4.B.) which established timeframes for timely reporting of the Family Report (form HUD-50058) into the Public and Indian Housing Information Center (PIC), explained PIC modifications and clarified Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) reporting requirements. Section 4.A. has been revised to only require reporting of issuance of voucher (action code 10) for new admissions and portability move-ins. The purpose of this change is to relieve public housing agencies (PHA) of the administrative burden of submitting reports on families that have been issued a voucher, but may not necessarily move. Changes to section 4.B. are related to certain fields of the form HUD-50058 that require completion. The Department places great importance on the data it receives from PIC. The Department relies on PHAs to submit accurate, complete and timely data to administer, monitor and report on the management of its rental assistance programs. In order to fully justify its budget requests to Congress, the Department needs full cooperation from all PHAs in meeting their reporting requirements in a timely manner. The data from form HUD-50058 and form HUD-50058 Moving to Work (MTW) also assists the Department in responding to natural disasters and emergencies.

HUD Form 50058s must be submitted no later than 60 calendar days from the effective date of any action recorded on line 2b of the form HUD-50058 or form HUD-50058 MTW. HUD will monitor timeliness of reporting and may sanction a PHA for late reporting. PHAs are also required to submit a form HUD-50058 each time the PHA takes an action (particularly an interim reexamination) that corresponds to an applicable code in Section 2a of form HUD-50058 or form HUD-50058 MTW.

PIC has been modified to provide a warning if the submission of an action code 1 (New Admission) or action code 4 (Portability Move-in) is submitted without prior submission of a form HUD-50058 or form HUD-50058 MTW for action code 10 (Issuance of Voucher). This will enable the Department to track and monitor a PHA's success rate (number of voucher issuances to achieve leasing). In addition, exception payment standard requests for exception areas under 24 CFR §982.503(c) will not be approved if the data in PIC on voucher issuance is not available or does not support the request. In the future (and upon notice to all PHAs), the warning will be changed to a fatal error.

Caroline Severance Manor

Caroline Severance Manor will be a supportive housing and family property with 85 units of affordable rental housing, 48 of which will be designated as supportive housing for households living with mental illness and families who are clients of the Department of Mental Health and have open cases with the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). In addition to housing, parking spaces and a licensed child care center will be developed in partnership with the California Community Foundation Land Trust, the 1st Unitarian Church of Los Angeles and the Ketchum YMCA.

Resident services will be provided by Telecare Corporation. Residents can take advantage of mental health services, inpatient and community based care, case management and assertive community treatment and residential crisis.

The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) is partnering with the project, and there will be 42 project based units. Staff from HUD Los Angeles, HACLA and Los Angeles Councilmember Ed Reyes attended the event.

HUD Partners with GreatSchools to serve tenants

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has partnered with GreatSchools, a national non-profit educational resource for parents, to provide their free web-based tool, www.GreatSchools.org, to parents who live in public housing or who receive Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) rental assistance. This website offers a database of more than 200,000 PreK-12 public, charter, magnet and private schools across the U.S., and includes information on how parents can choose the best school for their children. It also features about 2,000 articles and videos that provide information on how parents can help their children be successful in school with free materials such as subject-based worksheets, parent-teacher conference information, homework help tips, college preparation support, and answers to parenting questions.

To find a school, users type in a city, zip code, or mailing address and their child's grade level. From there, a listing of local schools will appear with a GreatSchools Rating, including school performance information, school description, and parents' comments, and other relevant information, such as school address and contact information. School data on the website comes from a variety of sources, such as the National Center for Education Statistics.

By providing parents access to school-related information we hope to: (1) enable parents to make informed educational choices for their children; (2) empower parents to become further involved in their children's education; and, (3) increase the number of HUD-assisted households with school-age children who have access to schools performing at or above the local average.

HUD is seeking your assistance in supporting this partnership by making the resources found on the GreatSchools website easily accessible to HUD-assisted parents, particularly HCV recipients. Information on the website can be useful to all families at any time, but this information can be especially useful when families are looking to move with a voucher. School differences vary by school district and can also vary by neighborhood, and Great Schools can help families choose a neighborhood or a better performing school in the neighborhood where they currently live. Providing this information when families first obtain a voucher or during their annual recertification will give parents and guardians timely access to details about schools, test scores and extracurricular activities where they live or choose to live.

We ask that you include the GreatSchools URL, www.GreatSchools.org, on your PHA website as a valuable resource to parents and other community members visiting your site. Please contact your web administrator for information on adding the URL to your site.

Please also share this information with your Resident Service Coordinators and local service providers.

Avoid Receiving HUD Notice of Deficiency/Potential Improper Payments

Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) can avoid receiving a HUD notice of deficiency during the month of January 2012 by ensuring the following:

1. The PHA's Public and Indian Housing Information Center (PIC) Reporting rate is 97% or higher;
2. There are no overdue annual reexaminations for a family;
3. The PHA has access to the Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system and has used EIV within the last 30 days;
4. The PHA has corrected deficiencies noted on EIV's Identity Verification report ;
5. There are no reported deceased tenants on EIV's Deceased Tenants Report; and
6. Updated or corrected forms HUD-50058 are successfully submitted to PIC by December 30, 2011.

PHAs may view a copy of HUD-issued deficiency notices and guidance to address the deficiencies online.

The HUD-Designated EIV stars list for the first quarter of 2012 (October 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011) will be published late January 2012, based on the EIV reports as of December 31, 2011.

Beginning with Quarter 1 of 2012, HUD will manually adjust the Identity Verification report to subtract household members with a PIC-generated alternate ID whose immigration status is "ineligible noncitizen" and whose household's assistance is prorated since no further action is required by PHAs. If after this manual subtraction there are zero (0) households on the Failed EIV Pre-Screening and the Failed SSA Identity Test reports, the PHA will be designated as an EIV Star. With the upcoming Spring 2012 EIV release, the report will no longer list the aforementioned household members on the report.

ARRA Expenditure Reminder

Once your grant reaches 100% expenditure, please submit your Final Cost Certificate and Final Performance and Evaluation Report HUD Form 50075.1. Our office would like to begin the close-out procedures as soon as possible, so we would appreciate the submission of these documents as soon as possible. Note, both must be submitted within 90 days of expiration or termination of the grant, per 24 CFR 85.50.

Final Cost Certificate (The cost certificate is a financial statement subject to audit pursuant to 24 CFR 85.26.)
-Actual Modernization Cost Certificate (AMCC); or
-Actual Development Cost Certificate (ADCC) If applicable

Final Performance and Evaluation Report HUD Form 50075.1: Please remember to mark "final" on this report. Also, the report must be signed and dated by Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer.

Online Reports
Additionally, if you have not already submitted, when a grant is 100% expended, final reports must be submitted in RAMPS and Fed Reporting. For the quarter ending September 30, 2011, RAMPS and Fed Reporting must be submitted per the schedule below:

• RAMPS guidance can be found by on HUD's website.
• Fed Reporting guidance can be found here: www.federalreporting.gov/federalreporting/downloads.do#docs.

If you have questions, please contact:
Johnson Badalpour (Johnson.g.badalpour@hud.gov) at (213) 534-2603
Christopher Granger (Christopher.r.granger@hud.gov) at (213) 534-2767
Marilyn Patterson (Marilyn.g.patterson@hud.gov) at (213) 534-2467
Twan Quach (Twan.Quach@hud.gov) at (213) 534-2485

PHA Board Training

HUD is rolling out Board training for all members of PHA Boards of Commissioners. The training will cover: overview of key activities for new Executive Directors; General Depository Agreements; and Board of Commissioners training.

Please contact sara.e.kurzenhauser@hud.gov

Proactive Exchange

Please join us for the next Proactive Exchange scheduled Tuesday February 7, 2012 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon.

Topic and speaker ideas welcome! Contact maria.j.granata@hud.gov

Suggested speakers and topics always welcome. Agenda forthcoming. Contact maria.j.granata@hud.gov

####