The House Housing Subcommittee has released a modified version of an earlier Section 8 Voucher Reform proposal, and chances for passage this year look to have improved over what they were earlier.
The bill, entitled the Section 8 Savings Act, eliminates the work requirements for public and assisted housing tenants and a time limit on assistance that were included in the earlier proposals. Once the bills go to markup, it is possible that both requirements will be reintroduced.
The draft bill also does not include the Moving-to-Work demonstration program, which is currently active at 33 public housing agencies (PHAs). This could be a sticking point in final negotiations since many Republican members of Congress favor the program.
One provision of the new bill would change the definition of “extremely low income” to the higher of 30% of area median income or the federal poverty line published by the Department of Health & Human Services.
One goal of the measure is to streamline the calculation of incomes by increasing the annual standard deduction for an elderly or disabled family from $400 to $675, and increasing the dependent child deduction from $480 to $525. Also, income would only have to be recertified every three years for families with fixed incomes.
The bill would also give PHAs discretion to conduct inspections for units with voucher residents every two years instead of annually and would allow the inspections of other state or federal affordable housing programs to substitute for the PHA inspection.
This is just a proposed bill – owners and managers should continue to follow current HUD guidance in all these areas.