by Clare Duncan, National Housing Conference
This morning, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that they are proposing a new rule to improve the HOME program. This rule, which will re-write some of HOME’s compliance requirements, is designed to improve the program’s overall performance. These changes have been in development since 2009 and also come two days after a joint hearing of the Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittees on “Fraud in the HOME Program.”
According to HUD’s media release, the proposed rule would:
- Require state and local governments to improve their oversight of programs and more closely monitor their HOME-funded sub-recipients
- Require state and local governments to assess the long-term viability and capacity of a project before funding is committed
- Require state and local governments to more regularly report on their activities once projects are underway
- Establishing specific timeframes for taking corrective action when funds are not used properly
The rule will be posted to the federal register soon. For more information, please view the HUD media release. For more information on NHC’s efforts around the HOME program, please view our blog post on the recent HOME hearing as well as NHC’s press release on the proposed rule.