Whether you advertise your site's low-income units online, in local newspapers or community newsletters, in phone recordings, or by putting up signs, your messages must abide by fair housing law. The Fair Housing Act (FHA) prohibits owners and managers of rental housing from discriminating...
Site owners and managers beware: This is the time of year when accidental carbon monoxide poisonings peak. Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that's produced when fuel is incompletely burned. In the winter months, faulty furnaces and fuel-burning appliances, and snow-covered or...
The slow economic recovery and high unemployment rates have created a surge in full-time enrollment among vocational schools and community colleges across the United States, according to research from the American Association of Community Colleges and the National Center for Education Statistics...
Drug-related and criminal activity has long been associated with low-income housing in the public mind. While drug dealing also takes place in conventional housing sites, most drug dealers and gangs target low-income developments to push their drugs to an already fragile population, say crime...
There are some distinct differences between managing a mixed-income site versus a 100 percent tax credit site. The most obvious is that, with a 100 percent site, you know that all of your units are low income. But if your site is mixed income, and you rent to both low-income and market-rate...
The headlines are alarming. It has become all too common to see reports about “toxic mold” shutting down buildings, or about families fleeing from “black mold” in their homes. These types of stories have fueled public hysteria leading to skyrocketing mold-related lawsuits...
Every tax credit site has a host of criteria for leasing, compliance, and dealing with households. Without a formal plan that spells out how to apply the appropriate policies and procedures in a given situation, the staff often is left to their own devices. This can lead to uninformed and...
It can be difficult to keep track of compliance requirements on a site with tax credit and market-rate units, especially during a lease-up phase. A development map gives site management a clear visual aid for meeting compliance criteria.
Mapping the development is generally a step that...
Do you have a simple system that allows your staff to quickly locate key compliance criteria in a user-friendly format? Whether your site is new or has been up and running for years, putting together a development binder that contains all of the governing documents for that site is crucial for...
Residents of multiunit housing sites can find that loving thy neighbor isn't always that easy. Every site owner or manager has had to deal with residents’ complaints about their neighbors at some point. Loud music, unruly kids, noisy pets, cooking odors—no matter what the issue,...
Use of the Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system for public and multifamily housing providers receiving HUD rental assistance became mandatory on Jan. 31, 2010. Progress seemed bumpy earlier in the year, with lagging participation from some owners and agents, multiple system outages,...
Tax credit owners are getting better at complying with the Fair Housing Act's accessibility guidelines in their newly constructed housing projects. However, many who receive federal funding still fail to ensure that they have the appropriate percentage of accessible units to meet the Uniform...
