HUD Kentucky Highlights Winter 2011

The Kentucky office of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development wishes you well as we step into the new year. Each of us is grateful to you-our valued partners-for the sterling work we completed together in 2011, and we look forward to continuing our work together in service to the Commonwealth's citizens throughout 2012.

It is our honor to be public servants. Please call upon us to help you. I also welcome you to provide feedback to me regarding the quality of our service. Let me know what we are doing well and where we can improve. You can reach me at (502) 618-8140 or at Krista.Mills@hud.gov.

Best to you,

Krista Mills
Field Office Director
US HUD, Kentucky Office

Partner.HUD.Gov

HUD launched a new web tool that features - for the first time - contact information and proposal details for the highest-scoring applicants to HUD's flagship community development initiatives. Partner.hud.gov leverages the Department of Education's technical platform data.ed.gov and is designed to boost public/private partnership and philanthropic support for the most promising plans for turning the nation's distressed communities into viable and sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods linked to good schools, retail, transportation, and access to jobs. Partner.hud.gov will initially feature Choice Neighborhoods Planning and Implementation grantees, as well as the highest-scoring runners up from each competition. The web feature is intended to provide information funders and other local stakeholders can use to find and support applications that HUD deemed promising, but was unable to fund as well as grantees eager to attract additional resources to their transformation plans. It will also offer communities greater access to work happening around the country and best-practice models that might help shape their efforts. Over time, partner.hud.gov will grow as more grant programs take advantage of this capability.

Small businesses: Forecast of contracting 2012

HUD is committed to ensuring that small, very small, small disadvantaged, women-owned, and veteran-owned businesses participate fully in departmental contracting activities. This document will assist the small business community by providing advanced notice of HUD's procurement plans for the Fiscal Year. The document is intended to be dynamic, subject to changes as priorities change, and will be updated periodically. See the forecast in PDF format. Go here (www.sba.gov/content/8a-business-development) for information from the Small Business Administration.

POST: One-stop tool for housing authorities

HUD has launched the Public and Indian Housing One-Stop Tool (POST) for housing authorities, as part of HUD's Delivering Together initiative. POST is a website that enables housing authorities to quickly access HUD systems, tools, program requirements, and much more. The POST homepage organizes information into eight categories that housing authorities have indicated are the resources they most often search for on the HUD website. They are: (1) Public Housing; (2) Housing Choice Voucher; (3) Grants; (4) Other Programs; (5) Systems; (6) Tools; (7); Laws and Policies; and (8) Directories.

Another exciting feature of POST is the A-Z Index, an exhaustive alphabetical list of information relevant to public housing programs. Additionally, HUD has several new features under development that will make useful web content even more accessible, including a Calendar of Due Dates for, an email box to suggest improvements to POST, and a list of HUD Forms. Rather than spend considerable time searching for information and resources, housing authorities will now be able to access all the material they need on POST. To learn more visit (and bookmark) POST (http://1.usa.gov/uu3yNS).

Funding available: Housing counselors and lead-based paint removal

HUD opened the competition for more than $40 million that will enable local agencies to provide a broad range of HUD-approved housing counseling agencies and state housing finance agencies to help families find and preserve housing. Services provided will include how to avoid foreclosure, how to avoid mortgage scams, how to purchase or rent a home, how to improve credit scores, and how to qualify for a reverse mortgage. Applications are due January 12, 2012 and HUD expects to award some 500 grants. "We fought hard to persuade Congress to restore funding for housing counseling in HUD's Fiscal Year 2012 budget," said HUD Secretary Donovan, "and I'm pleased that they did so. We will now work to make these important resources available to help families as quickly as possible." For more information, please visit Grants.gov

Also, HUD is making some $114 million in grants available to help eliminate dangerous lead-based paint hazards from lower income homes in order to protect young children from lead poisoning; help local communities set up programs to control other housing health and safety hazards; and conduct research on improving control methods. Applications for $61 million in Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control Grant Program funds and $45 million in Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration Grant Program funds are due January 18th. Applications for $2.5 million in million under Healthy Homes Technical Studies Program are due January 31st. In its Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control Grant Program, HUD is providing an additional $5.3 million to promote and develop a local Healthy Housing initiative, building on their lead hazard control program, to address multiple housing-related health hazards through assessment using the home health and safety rating system. For more, visit Grants.gov.

Income limits for 2012 are in effect now

Check the income limits for fiscal year 2012 online (www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/il/il12/index.html).

HUD's new proposed HOME rule!

On December 16, HUD's new proposed regulations under its HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME) (www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-12-16/pdf/2011-31778.pdf) were published in the Federal Register. HOME is the largest federal block grant to state and local governments designed exclusively to produce affordable housing for low-income families. Since 1992, the HOME Program has successfully assisted the creation of more than one million affordable homes for lower income families. However, Secretary Donovan believes the program can be strengthened to significantly boost the program's performance at the local level.

Specifically, HUD's proposed rule would: Require state and local governments to adopt policies and procedures to improve their oversight of projects, develop a system for assessing the relative risk of projects, and more closely monitor their HOME-funded sub-recipients; Require state and local governments to assess a developer's capacity and the long-term viability of the project, before they commit HOME funds to a project; Require more frequent reporting by state and local 'participating jurisdictions' to enable HUD to more closely track projects once they're under way; and Set a higher 'performance bar' by establishing specific timeframes for taking appropriate corrective actions against participating jurisdictions who fail to complete what they started.

Help stop fraud, waste and abuse

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) strives to detect and prevent fraud, waste and abuse and promoting the effectiveness and efficiency of government operations. While organizationally OIG is located within HUD, they operate independently with separate budgetary authority. If you see something you think needs to be reported? This is the IG hotline: hotline@hudoig.gov to learn more please visit: www.hudoig.gov.

From the FHA corner

For those interested in buying HUD homes, see the latest list online (http://hudhomestore.com/HudHome/Index.aspx) or follow on Twitter @HudHomeStore. The Twitter account also features information about upcoming trainings, resources for homebuyers, and related HUD programs.

When you need to request the cancellation of an assigned number and the borrower and property remain the same: Lenders may request a case number cancellation only for loans that have not yet closed. Lenders must submit their request to the Homeownership Center (HOC) via email. Fax requests are no longer accepted by FHA. In the Southeast, the HOC is located in Atlanta. Send the request to email box: ATLInsurance&Underwriting@hud.gov.

If you have not checked the maximum loans limits that will be effective until the end of 2012, read the Mortgagee Letter 2011-39 (ML 11-39) "Federal Housing Administration Maximum Loan Limits Effective October 1, 2011 through December 31, 2012" The loan limits have now been posted to FHA's website (https://entp.hud.gov/idapp/html/hicostlook.cfm).

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