Quality Control For Rental Assistance Subsidies
Determinations for FY 2003 (August 2004, 113p)
U.S. HUD’s Quality Control for Rental Assistance Subsidies
Determinations studies provide national estimates of the extent,
severity, costs, and sources of rent errors for the Public
Housing, Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher, Section 8 project-based,
and Section 202 and Section 811 programs with PRAC or PAC
tenant subsidies. These so-called “deep subsidy”
programs account for nearly all of HUD’s current housing
assistance outlays administered by the Offices of Housing
and Public and Indian Housing, as well as the large majority
of units assisted by HUD. This study was designed to measure
the extent of administrative error by housing providers. The
errors found affect the rent contributions tenants should
have been charged. Findings show that efforts made by HUD
and program sponsors have had a significant impact on reducing
program errors since the last Quality Control (QC) study in
2000.
HUD’s rental housing assistance programs are administered
on HUD’s behalf by third-party program administrators,
including public housing agencies (PHAs), public and private
project owners, and contracted management agents. In the programs
examined, eligible tenants generally are required to pay 30
percent of their income toward rent, with HUD providing the
balance of the rental payment. New program applicants are
required to provide certain information on household characteristics,
income, assets, and expenses that is used to determine what
rent they should pay. Existing tenants are required to re-certify
this information on an annual basis and also, in some circumstances,
when significant changes occur in household income. Applicant
or tenant failure to correctly report their income may result
in the Department’s over- or underpayment of housing
assistance. The failure of the responsible program administrator
to correctly interview the tenant or process, calculate and
bill the tenant’s rental assistance also may result
in the Department’s over- or underpayment of housing
assistance.
In 2000, HUD began to establish a baseline error measurement
to cover the major types of rental housing assistance payment
errors: (1) program administrator income and rent determination
error, (2) intentional tenant misreporting of income, and
(3) errors in program administrator billings for assistance
payments. The tenant data collected for this study will also
be used to provide the sample and data used for income matching
to measure the extent of intentionally unreported tenant income.
A methodology for developing baseline estimates for the third
error component, billing error, has been developed and tested,
but studies with sufficient sample sizes to produce nationally
reliable error estimates will not provide results until later
in FY 2005. The balance of this report relates solely to program
administrator income and rent determination error.
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