The purpose of this meeting is to create an improved property inspection process that maintains quality rental housing The meeting will be held: Tuesday, September 30th from 11:00-12:00 at Janesville City Hall, Room 416. Current Participating Landlords and Rent Assistance Clients are welcome to attend. Here’s some additional background information that we’ll be sharing with others as we continue to evaluate the inspection process: The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently published a notice allowing Housing Authorities to reduce the frequency of Housing Quality Standard Inspections in an effort to reduce administrative burden for agencies providing Housing Choice Voucher Programs (Section 8) and to reduce Federal costs. In recent years, the funding provided by HUD to administer the Rent Assistance Program has been insufficient to cover the cost of administering the program. Currently housing inspections are required: upon move in, and annually thereafter. Complaint and quality control inspections are also required. The change would allow the annual inspection to be replaced with a biennial inspection and allows for alternate inspections to replace the HQS inspection. As you are aware, the annual inspection process is currently aligned with the client’s annual re-certification process (where we re-verify income and program eligibility and determine the tenant’s portion of rent and utilities to be paid). The annual inspection process begins nearly 4 months before the client’s recertification. In 2013, a total of 593 move in and initial annual inspections were completed. Of those, 167 or 28% did not pass the initial inspection, requiring a re-inspection, resulting in a total of 760 inspections/reinspections completed. Staff has been evaluating this potential change and have identified advantages and disadvantages to reducing the frequency of inspections. We are exploring the use of a biennial inspection as a benefit to clients/landlords who pass their annual inspection without needed repairs, while continuing an annual schedule for those who do not pass the initial annual inspection, and scheduling our inspections geographically to increase efficiency of the inspection process. Before, finalizing our proposal for the Janesville Community Development Authority (CDA), we would like your input into advantages and disadvantages of a biennial inspection process and assistance in re-designing our inspection process in a way that benefits landlords and tenants, while maintaining quality rental housing and increasing the efficiency of our inspection process. If you are unable to attend the meeting and would like to provide input, please email Linda Moses at [email protected] , who will compile this information for further consideration. The Janesville CDA is anticipated to hold a public hearing and consider a change in our inspection process later this year. Jennifer Jennifer Petruzzello Neighborhood & Community Services Director City of Janesville Department of Neighborhood & Community Services 18 N. Jackson Street Janesville, WI 53547-5005 608-755-3038 [email protected]
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 18:41:49 +0000
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