HUD OFFICE ANNOUNCES MILESTONE RESTRUCTURING AGREEMENTS SENT TO HOUSING AGENCIES AROUND THE NATION

WASHINGTON - The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Multifamily Housing Assistance Restructuring (OMHAR) announced today that Portfolio Restructuring Agreements have been sent to 39 state and 13 local housing agencies.

In a letter to state and local agency directors, OMHAR Director Ira Peppercorn expressed his gratitude to those who helped with the development of the new contracts. He also said he looks forward to a constructive partnership between the agencies and OMHAR.

The agencies will work on behalf of OMHAR with property owners and low-income tenants to facilitate a debt restructuring to ensure the long-term viability of affordable housing throughout the nation.

"This milestone represents tremendous progress in our joint effort to maintain our affordable housing stock," Peppercorn said.

Last week Peppercorn welcomed the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority as it became the first partner in this nationwide effort to preserve affordable housing.

The effort is part of a program known as "Mark-to-Market," which gets its name because rents permitted by HUD in privately owned subsidized housing are marked down to the competitive market rent level prevailing in an area's rental housing.

The program is designed to enable HUD to more effectively use its subsidies to preserve the maximum amount of affordable housing under the Project-Based Section 8 Program.

Residents of assisted housing under the Project-Based Section 8 Program pay 30 percent of their income as rent, and HUD subsidies pay landlords the difference between the resident payment and the competitive market rent.

HUD won Congressional approval of its Mark-to-Market program in 1997 as part of a plan to rescue the Section 8 Program from financial collapse and avert an affordable housing crisis that could have threatened up to 4.4 million Americans with homelessness.