Rebuilding the Research Capacity at HUD (2008) / Chapter Skim
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6 Evaluation of Policy Development and Program Support
6 Evaluation of Policy Development and Program Support
Pages 93-112
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From page 93... ...
A number of HUD's major policy initiatives have been developed in such situations. PD&R staff have an advantage over program offices in designing and managing research projects and in interpreting research results.
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From page 94... ...
The committee found it convenient to discuss PD&R's role in programmatic and regulatory activities separately. Within the programmatic activities, the committee distinguishes between modest changes, major reforms, and broad urban policy concerns that may lie outside the responsibilities of the department.
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From page 95... ...
They can serve different purposes, ranging from improvements in the operations of HUD programs, to new initiatives within the general framework of HUD's authority, and to broad urban policy concerns, such as providing support to independent commissions established by the secretary or even the President to address subjects that may be outside the program responsibilities of the department. In the program support category in particular, there are differences in scope and scale.
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From page 96... ...
Quality Control For many years HUD has been sharply criticized for substantial inaccuracies in setting rents for tenants in its assisted housing programs, including both those administered by the Office of Public and Indian Housing (public housing and the voucher and certificate programs) and those administered by the Office of Housing (Section 8 and earlier privately owned subsidized projects)
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From page 97... ...
The program offices, working in cooperation with PD&R and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, began implementing these recommendations in 2001 through the Rental Housing Integrity Improvement Project, and by fiscal 2003 HUD had begun to reduce errors substantially. By fiscal 2005, the error rate had been reduced to about 3 percent, or about $900 million (assisted housing programs were substantially larger in 2005 than in 1993)
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From page 98... ...
. The original use of the estimates was in the public housing program; they now apply in 11 HUD assistance and community development programs.
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From page 99... ...
In 1994 the accumulated evidence from PD&R research about the effectiveness of housing vouchers led HUD to offer emergency vouchers to low-income households displaced after the Northridge earthquake. Moreover, existing research on program features that discouraged landlord participation informed the decision to waive some of the standard program regulations so that the emergency vouchers would be more widely accepted in the Los Angeles rental market.
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From page 100... ...
, for the first time in any FHA insurance program; a method for calculating the maximum amount of a mortgage, based on the borrower's age and the interest rate; and formulas for borrowers to establish their own plans for receiving payments from the mortgage. The two-part premium subsequently was adopted for the basic FHA home mortgage insurance program and some smaller programs.
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From page 101... ...
Such findings result in a decision to not proceed with the proposal, or to withdraw it if it has already been introduced in Congress. Changing Fair Market Rents Fair market rents have been set at the 40th percentile of the rent distribution for recent movers living in decent housing.
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From page 102... ...
. The specific proposals were described in "HUD R einvention: From Blueprint to Action," issued in March 1995; they included plans to consolidate 60 major HUD operating programs into three performance-based funds by 1998; to fundamentally change the nature of federal subsidies to public housing authorities by providing tenants with portable rental certificates they could use in place or to rent housing in the private market; and to convert the Federal Housing Administration into a government-owned corporation that would run more like a modern insurance company than a bureaucracy.
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From page 103... ...
, to conduct a "quickt urnaround" field study in Baltimore of the public housing reinvention plan, which would enable the department to answer as many specific questions as possible about what would happen to families, properties, and housing authorities under the department's proposals. The 5-month exercise involved the systematic comparison of every HABC public housing property with private unsubsidized rental housing as of June 1995.
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From page 104... ...
Fund In the immediate aftermath of the savings and loan industry crisis that culminated in the enactment of the Financial Institutions Recovery, Reform, and Enforcement Act in 1989, the financial status of the FHA single-family home mortgage insurance program became a major concern. HUD Secretary Kemp ordered a systematic analysis of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI)
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From page 105... ...
Manufactured Housing Wind Safety Standards Manufactured housing regulation has been primarily the responsibility of a specialized staff in the Office of Housing since passage of the Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards Act of 1974.
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From page 106... ...
PD&R has also had a broader role in manufactured housing policy. The PD&R assistant secretary served as a member of the National Commission on Manufactured Housing, by appointment of the HUD secretary.
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From page 107... ...
housing finance system and the problems of thrift institutions, which were not and have not been HUD responsibilities, but were regulated by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and other financial regulators. Regulatory Barriers PD&R provided the staff for the Secretary's Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing.
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From page 108... ...
The proposal was not enacted, but became the forerunner of legislation to create "enterprise communities" and "empowerment zones" in the next administration. Home Ownership Initiatives Promoting home ownership, a major goal of housing policy since the 1930s, has been a priority in the last two administrations.
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From page 109... ...
He called housing industry and advocacy organizations to a White House conference to identify actions that each would take in support of the initiative, and established a numerical target for additional minority homeowners over the rest of the decade. PD&R again provided the analysis that led to the specific target, and continues to monitor minority home ownership trends and measure progress toward achieving the target.
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From page 110... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS PD&R has clearly produced important and valuable policy development work across a broad range of HUD program responsibilities and urban policy concerns. It has perhaps been most valuable when fundamental reforms are necessary, but it has also contributed to numerous large and small policy initiatives and program improvements.
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From page 111... ...
The former provided staff support for the Secretary's Advisory Commission on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing and conducted the study of voucher concentration in Baltimore neighborhoods. The latter conducted the Project Self-Sufficiency Demonstration in the mid-1980s, the first HUD effort to combine housing assistance with other services in an effort to help low-income families move from welfare to the labor market, and the forerunner of other, larger HUD initiatives with the same purpose.
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From page 112... ...
The loss of staff capacity in both offices is effectively greater than these figures, because they include the Research Utilization Division in the case of the Office of Policy Development and the Economic and Market Analysis Division in the case of the Office of Economic Affairs. The former unit does not have policy development responsibilities and the latter has a mixture of policy development and program operational responsibilities; their staffs have remained essentially constant.
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