Advocates for tenants have expressed concern that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has backed away from new health and safety requirements for public housing, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
National Alliance of HUD Tenants executive director Michael Kane said “it was surprising, because we thought they were moving in a positive direction in a lot of ways. So it was disappointing that there was a retrenchment. The stronger version is important for people's health and safety.”
The new standards would have mandated fire extinguishers, a minimum number of electrical outlets and other measures meant to protect residents from potentially life-threatening hazards, but housing industry groups had pressed HUD to ease some of these requirements, saying they would be too burdensome for landlords.
The updated standards, which are still being worked on, are part of a sweeping overhaul over the past several years that seeks to bolster HUD’s inspection system for federally subsidized housing, which is home to some five million families nationwide.
With the reforms the agency has significantly expanded the number of severe hazards that landlords are required to fix quickly, put more emphasis on the condition of residential units rather than only building exteriors and added numerous safety and health requirements that tenant advocates have broadly backed.
But since last year HUD has also gotten rid of or relaxed some stricter proposed inspection standards in several key areas, according to an analysis by NBC News of the draft proposals.
HUD insists that providing safe and sanitary housing is a top priority for the Biden administration and has denied weakening protections for tenants
“HUD will continue to make updates to the standards as necessary before their final publication,” said Ashley Sheriff, an acting deputy assistant secretary for HUD's Real Estate Assessment Center, adding that the agency is carrying out thousands of demonstration inspections, as well as “substantial additional dialogue with residents, property owners and agents, public housing agencies and other stakeholders.”
But Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, a nonprofit group that promotes safe housing, said she is concerned that the most vulnerable tenants could be most at risk.
“If we don't deal with poor standards, we will continue the practice of rolling downhill, and communities of color and low-income households will bear the brunt of it,” Norton said. “That doesn't mean dumb them down or lighten them up until everyone agrees.”
HUD has stated that the goal of the updated regulations is to prioritize “the health and safety of residents,” rather than the physical appearance of otherwise safe items that have been disproportionately emphasized during inspections, such as cosmetic damage to the outside of buildings.
The Trump administration released the first draft of the new standards last year, and the inspection overhaul has continued under the Biden administration.
As part of the public feedback, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles wrote to HUD in March that “to hold older properties to the same standards of recent buildings is beyond unfair and it would be a financial burden.”
The letter continued that “some owners with older properties may decide not to participate if we are requiring significant upgrades to their units in order to pass inspection, upgrades that they are not required to perform if they rent to someone in the private market.”
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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