2019 Federal Shut Down Plan

Message from Jennifer Keogh, NCRC President

The Federal Government shut-down continues; the longest in our history, surpassing the 1995-1996 shutdown that lasted 21 days.  Though the House has passed several measures to re-open the government, none contain funding for a border wall and will not be considered by Senate because of a veto threat from the White House.

We have heard from YOU, our members, concerned about what happens beyond February.  How you plan for and message the shutdown is incredibly important. The attached Engagement Plan outlines the critical steps you should take as an agency as you prepare.

How should you prepare?

• Complete an Analysis of your funding, reserves and business costs
• • Before you do anything, you should complete a thorough analysis of your funding, determine your level of reserves and business costs. 

• Meet with your Board 
• • It’s important that you communicate with your board and seek their approval on your plan.  Board members are likely to get calls from concerned constituents.

• Communicate with your staff
• • Your staff need to fully understand the decisions and how to message the decisions to families and landlords

• Meet with Stakeholders in your community to ensure they know impact
• • All politics is local.  Determine who in the community you need to reach out to and communicate your plans. This may require a press release, meetings with stakeholders and interviews with the media.  

• Meet/communicate with landlords 
• • You may do one or all of the following:  hold a landlord forum that provides an opportunity to address landlord concerns, host a meeting online, post an electronic message on your website, send written communication.
  • Having HAP contract language is important regarding payments and eviction is important.
  • Encourage advocacy

• Meet/communicate with families/residents
• • You may do one or all of the following: host resident meeting(s), host meeting online, post an electronic message to your website, send written communication
  • Encourage advocacy.

• Engage with other organizations and state finance agencies

• Engage with legal community
• • Reach out to your legal advocates and ask them to partner with your agency

Communication templates for landlords and residents will be posted to the NCRC NAHRO website next week.

The President and the Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney need to hear from you: tell them to work with Congress to reopen the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The White House/OMB letter is the first letter in the NAHRO Advocacy Action Center.

NAHRO has a letter to Congress to the Advocacy Action Center. If you haven’t already, please send that one to your legislators as well, to urge them to work with the White House to reopen the federal government.

While HUD does have funding for the Housing Choice Voucher program and the Public Housing Operating Fund through February. if the shutdown continues into March, no payments will be made for that month.

PHAs administering Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) programs may access their HUD-held Housing Assistance Payment Reserves (HHR) under certain circumstances (i.e., their voucher reserves). In those instances where scheduled payments (for January and February) are not sufficient to meet a program’s Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) need, PHAs may access their reserves.

Specifically, in situations where a failure to act “would result in an imminent threat to the safety of human life or the protection of property,” PHAs may request their HAP reserves from HUD in the following instances:

1. To protect families that are at imminent risk of termination; or
2. PHAs that were eligible to receive a payment for January 2019 and did not receive it (e.g., first time Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) payment) and need reserves to ensure that the property owner(s) receives a HAP payment to continue assistance and protect the residents at the property.

These funds may only be used for HAP funding. To request the additional payment, please contact Robert.H.Boepple@hud.gov.  The request should include the following:

1. amount of the payment;
2. supporting monthly leasing projections;
3. point of contact email address;
4. point of contact phone number; and
5. cost saving measures that PHAs have taken to decrease the likelihood of a shortfall (see PIH Notice 2011-28).

Housing authorities should also review PIH Notice 2013-28 titled “Guidance on the Use of Outside Sources of Funds in the HCV Program.”

HUD’s email guidance can be found here.

As the shutdown continues NCRC NAHRO is  here to help answer questions and navigate these unchartered waters.  Please continue to forward any communication from HUD and news articles that may feature your agency to me.

It is my sincere hope that having an Engagement Plan will assist your agency through these times and help you as leaders feel more confident to lead through change.

In partnership,

Jennifer Keogh, NCRC NAHRO President

2019 Government Shutdown Engagement Plan

List of Government Shutdown Resources:

FAQ page

Sample HCV Landlord Letter (MS Word file)

Rights of Federally Assisted Residents during the Government Shutdown

Use this link to send an email each day until the shutdown ends!