Attending: Roslyn Phillips (Jacksonville, FL), Chair, Karla L. Gomez-Meyer (Denver, CO), Tom McCloskey (Fall River, MA), George M. Hovorka (Fall River, MA), Tom Phillips (Hartford, CT), Nancy Haney (Lubbock, TX), Todd Steelman (Lubbock, TX), Barbara Ross (Denton, TX), Bernadette Mitchell (Waco, TX), Vicki Covey (Amarillo, TX), Tony E. Crapp, Sr. (Miami-Dade County, FL), Para Rosario (Bridgeport, CT), Babs Richardson (Rockford, IL), Jerry Galloway (Huntsville, AL), Cliff Bright (Campbellsville, KY), Steve Young (Modesto, CA), Brenda Richard-Montgomery (Jefferson Parish, LA), Karen D. Bradford (Dallas, TX), Dana Sanchez (Mount Vernon, NY), Angelito Santos (Quincy, MA), Anthony Covacevich (Hidalgo County, TX), Connie Lorig (Colorado Springs, CO), Greg Hoover (Davenport, IA), Steve Gartrell (Newton, MA), Ollie L. Green (Trenton, NJ), Mike Hilliard (Aurora, CO), Paul Andrus (Aurora, CO), Bob Gehret (Boston, MA), Raquel Asrelsky (Springfield, MA), Al Faella (Elizabeth, NJ), Camilla Moore (Atlanta, GA), and Vicki Watson (NCDA staff).

A regularly scheduled meeting of the NCDA Housing Committee was held on Wednesday, January 27, 1999, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C. The meeting was held in conjunction with the 1999 Winter Meeting. Roslyn Phillips, Chair of the Housing Committee, called the meeting to order at 2:00 p.m. Brief introductions from members followed.

The following topics were covered:

NCDA staff provided a legislative and regulatory update to the committee in the following areas:

Legislative Update:

(1) HUD's FY 1999 Appropriations Bill

(2) Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (public and assisted housing reform legislation)

(3) Private Activity Bond increase

(4) H.R. 10 -- Financial Services Modernization legislation and its possible implications for CRA

(5) Focus of the authorizing committees in the coming year

(6) FY 2000 Budget process

Regulatory Update:

(1) HUD's FY 1998 "Continuum of Care" SuperNOFA

(2) Fair Housing Proposed Rule issued on October 21

Staff announced to the committee that NCDA had received approximately $150,000 in NAHTI funding for the coming year. NCDA plans to hold three HOME Refresher Course training sessions in various regions throughout the country this year. The training will be provided to three regions on a first-come, first-serve basis. Staff asked the committee if anyone had attended ICF Kaiser's training on CDBG, HOME, economic development, and relocation. Several committee members had attended the training and expressed favorable comments on the content. One member suggested that NCDA assist local jurisdictions with the registration fee in attending ICF Kaiser's training sessions.

Staff also announced to the committee that NCDA would focus some of its resources on a HOME technical assistance guidebook and asked for suggestions from committee members on particular areas to cover. Angelito Santos suggested that NCDA focus upon a "Pro Forma Analysis" Guidebook. Other members suggested that NCDA conduct a survey to garner further comments from members on a topic area for this guidebook. NCDA will send out a survey to its full membership by the end of April.

Staff asked for comments from the committee on the FY 1998 "Continuum of Care" SuperNOFA process. No comments were received on the application process itself, although one member pointed out that HUD needs to do a better job of notifying applicants of awards. Another member made the comment that it appeared that HUD would not fund emergency shelter projects, but seemed to focus more on providing resources to transitional and permanent housing projects. Another member noted that HUD needs to more clearly define "homelessness." Staff handed-out a list of comments received to date from an NCDA survey on the FY 1998 "Continuum of Care" SuperNOFA. Comments received from the survey on the FY 1998 "Continuum of Care" application process include the following: (1) fund renewals separately from new requests, (2) adopt a more realistic/fairer "needs" formula, (3) seek additional funds to ensure adequate dollars for renewals, (4) existing programs must get higher priority and not be subject to sudden cut-off due to a weak application, (5) HUD needs to reconfigure pro rata amounts for communities showing capacity, (6) publish the Super NOFA earlier in the year, (7) clarify the use of the "pro rata need" score in the competition, (8) HUD should issue guidance earlier in the process -- prior to the NOFA -- or else provide a longer time period for the application submittal, and (9) HUD needs to improve the application disc.

The Chair asked if the committee had any comments relevant to the HOME program. No comments were received.

The Chair asked if the committee had comments relevant to HUD's October 21, 1998 fair housing proposed rule. No comments were received. The Chair encouraged committee members to provide comments to HUD prior to the February 26 deadline. Staff reported to the committee that NCDA held a conference call on January 19 regarding the proposed rule and received the following comments from members: (1) Some members feel HUD is encroaching on local communities, (2) There should be locally-established performance standards, not HUD-mandated standards, (3) Allow communities to include any information that has to be reported to HUD on fair housing planning in their CAPER, (4) Communities do not want CPD funds to be withheld, (5) The rule will work well if all agencies work together, (6) Grantees cannot have influence or control over all impediments to fair housing (as implied in the rule), (7) The third performance standard should state, the grantee has been "convicted" of a fair housing violation, not "charged" with a violation. The rule assumes a grantee is "guilty until proven innocent" of a fair housing violation.

Marcia Sigal, Senior Policy Analyst with the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, provided committee members with an update of HUD's Mark-to-Market Program and a more indepth analysis of the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998. Marcia spent most of the time discussing two provisions of the Act that pertain to local governments, the HOME Rule Flexible Grant Demonstration and an increase in the CDBG/HOME income limits in high cost areas. The HOME Rule Flexible Grant Demonstration provision would allow up to 100 local jurisdictions to receive and combine public housing operating and capital assistance, along with Section 8 project-based and tenant-based assistance, over a four-year demonstration period. Interested jurisdictions would be required to submit an application to HUD. The second provision within the legislation directs HUD to override its current practice of capping local median income at the national median income in high housing cost areas for the CDBG and HOME programs for a minimum of ten metropolitan cities or urban counties. The legislation directed HUD to complete its selection the jurisdictions January 20, 1999. Staff handed-out a list of the 68 jurisdictions that HUD had selected. At least one committee member commented that they were interested in having their jurisdiction (which is located in a high cost area and subject to the national median income limit) receive an exception. Staff recommended that the jurisdiction submit a letter to its congressional representatives, with a copy to HUD officials (Andrew Cuomo and Cardell Cooper), requesting an exception to the national median income.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 3:15 p.m.