{"id":28411,"date":"2023-06-01T11:23:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/?p=28411"},"modified":"2023-06-01T11:23:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:23:02","slug":"rural-development-announces-stakeholder-listening-sessions-on-decoupling-as-a-preservation-tool-for-the-multifamily-housing-portfolio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/rural-development-announces-stakeholder-listening-sessions-on-decoupling-as-a-preservation-tool-for-the-multifamily-housing-portfolio\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural Development Announces Stakeholder Listening Sessions on Decoupling as a Preservation Tool for the Multifamily Housing Portfolio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>On June 1, 2023, RD sent out the following information:<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">In accordance with the FY23 Consolidated Appropriations Act, USDA is directed to conduct a series of stakeholder meetings and provide a report to Congress on how decoupling of Section 521 Rental Assistance (RA) from Section 515 Rural Rental Housing mortgages would be implemented. A critical component of the Department\u2019s report is the valued feedback from our industry partners.\u00a0 USDA Rural Development seeks stakeholder input on the implementation of \u201cdecoupling\u201d as a tool to facilitate the rehabilitation and preservation of the Multifamily Housing (MFH) portfolio at the time of mortgage maturity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">By statute, when a Section 515 mortgage matures or is terminated, the property is no longer eligible to receive Section 521 rental assistance, adversely impacting residents and creating an elevated risk of loss of affordable units in the Section 515 portfolio.\u00a0 Between 2023 and 2033, approximately 137,000 affordable housing units will be lost due to maturing Section 515 mortgages, with a potential to lose approximately 333,000 units by the year 2050. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">For owners willing to continue providing affordable housing upon mortgage maturity, the agency is currently limited to debt modifications and deferrals to keep the Section 515 mortgages in place, which enables the continued availability of RA.\u00a0 However, maintaining the Section 515 mortgage with currently available preservation tools may adversely impact the property by discouraging critical investments from other local, state, and federal sources or create a lack of equity for further recapitalization.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Decoupling is an important tool to preserve the affordability of the maturing Section 515 portfolio. It will allow for the continuation of the project-based RA to MFH tenants, who had an average annual household income of approximately $13,000 in Fiscal Year 2022, while also encouraging new third-party investment and recapitalization of the aging MFH portfolio.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Register for a Stakeholder Listening Session<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Feedback from MFH stakeholders and industry partners is critical as the Agency prepares its report to Congress on ways to implement decoupling. To obtain feedback from a wide range of partners, Rural Development is conducting two in-person sessions and two virtual sessions in June and July.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><u><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">In-Person Stakeholder Sessions<br \/>\n<\/span><\/u><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">The in-person sessions will be held at conferences conducted by the National Council of State Housing Agencies (June 15) and the Council for Affordable and Rural Housing (June 27). For more information about registering for either of these conferences, please contact the conference sponsors:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncsha.org\/event\/2023-housing-credit-connect\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #1d5782;\">2023 Housing Credit Connect \u2014 NCSHA<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.carh.org\/events\/2023-midyear-meeting-june\/\"><span style=\"color: #1d5782;\">2023 Annual Meeting &amp; Legislative Conference | CARH<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><u><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Virtual Stakeholder Sessions<br \/>\n<\/span><\/u><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Rural Development is hosting two virtual sessions open to all stakeholders. Sessions will be held on July 19<sup>th<\/sup> and July 25<sup>th<\/sup>. Interested participants should pre-register. A confirmation notice will be emailed to registrants.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 5.0pt 0in 12.0pt 22.5pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Virtual session #1: July 19, 2023<br \/>\n2:00 to 3:30 PM ET<br \/>\nMFH Decoupling Stakeholder Listening Session<br \/>\nRegister: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zoomgov.com\/webinar\/register\/WN_S8IV8KZ2TjKU-v231VIXhA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #1d5782;\">https:\/\/www.zoomgov.com\/webinar\/register\/WN_S8IV8KZ2TjKU-v231VIXhA<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 5.0pt 0in 12.0pt 22.5pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Virtual session #2: July 25, 2023<br \/>\n2:00 to 3:30 PM ET<br \/>\nRegister: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zoomgov.com\/webinar\/register\/WN_A7a3cdjgRy6D6xWguP24Qw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #1d5782;\">https:\/\/www.zoomgov.com\/webinar\/register\/WN_A7a3cdjgRy6D6xWguP24Qw<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">Agency Accepting Stakeholder Comments on MFH Decoupling<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">In addition to providing feedback during the in-person or virtual sessions, stakeholders may provide written comments to the agency on MFH decoupling until <strong><span style=\"font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif;\">July 31, 2023<\/span><\/strong>. Comments may be submitted to <a href=\"mailto:Decoupling@usda.gov\"><span style=\"color: #1d5782;\">Decoupling@usda.gov<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: 'Arial',sans-serif; color: #232323;\">To subscribe to USDA Rural Development updates, visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rd.usda.gov\/files\/MFH_GovDelivery_Subsription_Link.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #1d5782;\">GovDelivery subscription link.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On June 1, 2023, RD sent out the following information: In accordance with the FY23 Consolidated Appropriations Act, USDA is directed to conduct a series of stakeholder meetings and provide a report to Congress on how decoupling of Section 521 Rental Assistance (RA) from Section 515 Rural Rental Housing mortgages would be implemented. A critical&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-1","description-off"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28412,"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28411\/revisions\/28412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carh.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}