HUD’s NHL is a response to lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and related disasters. It complements HUD’s proven housing and emergency disaster voucher programs and is designed to be a single, Internet-based web site that will assist individuals and families in finding rental housing in a Presidential-declared or local disaster.

The NHL is a searchable, web-based clearinghouse of available rental housing nation-wide. It allows HUD and its business partners, in particular State Housing Authorities, Public Housing Authorities, and other critical First Responders, to deliver housing assistance by rapidly locating rental housing and available government-owned single family homes for sale during an emergency. The NHL uses a rental housing industry standard for requesting data, and collects available responses to a housing request from private and public housing locators across the country. A selected housing query through a web site sends the requester to the private or public housing locator providing the data. The original data provider provides the details on the rental, points of contact and other value added resources.

The National Housing Locator Syatem (NHLS) Application has been moved to the new portal environment at http://portal.hud.gov/app_nhls