The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that it is charging the owners and landlords of a high-rise complex in New York City with violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to allow a resident with disabilities to have an emotional support animal. HUD’s charge alleges that Friedman Residence, LLC (formerly called the Aurora), Common Ground Management Corporation, and The Actors’ Fund of America refused to accept that the resident required a dog to cope with the symptoms of his disability. Read HUD’s charge.

After nearly two years, Bill Block, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Northwest Regional Administrator, is stepping down from his current position and assuming another key role at HUD focused on ending homelessness

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that it is charging the owner and managers of Bramante’s Apartments, a 120-unit complex in New Brighton, Minnesota, with violating the Fair Housing Act by refusing to allow a resident with disabilities to have a dedicated accessible parking spot.

In the nearly three years since Hurricane Sandy devastated coastal communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Rockefeller Foundation and a multi-discipline team of regional planning partners organized a nearly $1 billion competition to foster coordination and resilience at the local level and across the country. Today, the General Services Administration (GSA) awarded HUD’s Rebuild by Design Competition the first-ever “Most Groundbreaking Federal Challenge or Prize Competition.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that it is awarding over $3.5 million under HUD’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) to eleven organizations in New York State to fight housing discrimination. The funding announced today will benefit fair housing organizations in Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Westchester, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island. It is part of a national award totaling over $38 million. See chart below for a listing of grant recipients and read summaries here of the activities these organizations will conduct with the grants.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today that it is charging Carrol Goodsell and his company, Goodsell General Contracting L.L.C., of Spearfish, South Dakota, with violating the Fair Housing Act by sexually harassing a woman who was renting a single family home managed by him. Specifically, HUD’s charge alleges that Goodsell subjected the woman, who occupied the house with her two children and her boyfriend, to repeated inappropriate sexual comments and physical contact. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that it is awarding more than $38 million under HUD’s Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) to over 100 groups across the nation to fight housing discrimination.See chart below for a listing of grant recipientsand read summaries here of the activities these organizations will conduct with the grants.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded more than $2 million in research grants designed to protect children and other vulnerable groups from health hazards in their homes. This funding highlights the link between housing and health, and methods for reducing residential health hazards. HUD’s grants are being awarded to two universities and a non-profit research institution studying new low-cost methods to control asthma triggers in the home, and to control tobacco smoke residue that has settled on home surfaces (referred to as third-hand smoke.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced today that the Bartlesville Redevelopment Trust Authority will receive a $500,000 grant to redevelop the former Washington County Memorial Hospital and build additional affordable housing units targeted to low-income residents. The grant is funded through HUD’s HOPE VI MainStreet Program.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and Kansas City, Missouri today to announce that five communities will receive a combined $150 million to redevelop severely distressed public housing and revitalize the surrounding neighborhood. HUD is awarding Choice Neighborhoods Initiative Implementation Grants to city and housing authority partnerships in Atlanta, Georgia; Kansas City, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Sacramento, California; in order to begin the process of transforming, rehabilitating and preserving public housing.

Sales of new single-family houses in August 2015 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 552,000, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Census Bureau. This is 5.7 percent (±16.2%)* above the revised July rate of 522,000 and is 21.6 percent (±18.7%) above the August 2014 estimate of 454,000.

As part of the Obama Administration’s effort to prevent and effectively end homelessness, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today that it will offer $1.9 billion for fiscal year 2015 to support existing and new homelessness programs. Funded through HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) Homeless Assistance Program Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), this notice will further incentivize local applicants to pursue permanent housing using a Housing First approach to target their resources to proven strategies.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today decided that HUD will not force thousands of New York and New Jersey homeowners to repay federal disaster recovery funds following a decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to increase flood insurance claim payments to families it initially underpaid following Hurricane Sandy.

In an effort to protect children and families from potentially dangerous lead-based paint and other health and safety hazards, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded over $101 million to 32 city, county and state governments. The grant funding announced will reduce the number of lead-poisoned children and protect families by targeting health hazards in over 6,000 low-income homes with significant lead and/or other home health and safety hazards (see chart below).Read a summary of each of the grants announced today.

In an effort to protect children and families from the hazards of lead-based paint and other health hazards and safety hazards, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded $7.4 million in Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration grants split between New York City and Rochester, New York. The grants are part of $48.9 million announced to 14 recipients across the country

In an effort to protect children and families from the hazards of lead-based paint and other health hazards and safety hazards, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded more than $48 million in Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration grants to 14 local and state government agencies (see chart below).

To help prevent victims of domestic violence living with HIV/AIDS from falling into homelessness, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is making more than $9 million available to state, local governments and non-profits through the VAWA/HOPWA Project Demonstration – a collaborative effort between HUD’s Office of HIVAIDS Housing (OHH) and the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women (OVW). More than half of women living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. do not have access to stable housing and are at higher risk of experiencing domestic violence. Read HUD’s Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA)

As part of the White House’s National Clean Energy Summit, the Obama Administration and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced its intent to issue a set of guidelines supporting borrowers seeking to make energy efficient improvements to their homes. In today’s announcement, FHA expressed the intent to allow borrowers to use Single Family FHA financing for properties with existing Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans that meet certain conditions

the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released the final rulethat clarifies the portability regulations and requirements in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program and helps improve the processing of portability requests. Portability refers to a feature of the HCV program that allows an eligible family with a housing choice voucher to use that voucher to lease a unit anywhere in the United States where there is a public housing agency (PHA) operating an HCV program.

The Federal Housing Administration today announced a new method for evaluating the lending practices of FHA-approved lenders and understanding the sorts of borrowers they are serving. FHA’s new Supplemental Performance Metric will complement the agency’s existing ‘compare ratio’ and offer more nuanced insight into a lender’s specific performance while encouraging lenders to serve eligible underserved borrowers.