Legislation

SEVRA
The Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) allowed HAI to post its comparative analysis that it performed on the pending SEVRA (Section 8 Reform Act) legislation on its Web site. This analysis is laid out in tabular form and compares the current Section 8 statute with the SEVRA bill recently passed by the House, and the version that is currently before the Senate.

It is expected that this bill will spill over into the 2008 session of Congress. For more information, visit www.housingcenter.com, hover over the “Legislative Affairs” tab, and click "Research Reports."

HUD Budget
The T-THUD bill has passed both the House and Senate and has been in conference between the two chambers. It will ultimately become a part of a budget bill that will go to the President.

Information on other pending legislation can be found by logging on to HAI’s Legislative Action Center in the Members Only section of the Web site.

Legislative Action Center
 
State and Federal Election Year
In the last issue of INSITE, HAI's Legislative Action Center was introduced to our members. We encourage you to explore this new service. With an election year looming, this tool will be helpful to our members in staying abreast of the candidates and issues at the national level as well as in individual states. Go to www.housingcenter.com, hover over the “Legislative Affairs” tab, and click the “Legislative Action Center” link (The Legislative Action Center is located in the Members Only portion of the HAI Group Web site, so you will need to use your member ID and password. If you have never registered, go to the top of the homepage, click “Member Registration,” and follow the instructions). Once you have landed on the Members Only Area homepage, click the "Legislative Action Center" link. Select "Elections." This will be a helpful tool for members in 2008 to learn about candidates of interest and to keep abreast of elections. The national candidate information is already posted there and state data will be added as it becomes available.

For a tour of the Legislative Action Center, send e-mail to Brian Braley at bbraley@housingcenter.com.

Industry Group Cooperation
HAI, CLPHA, and PHADA have cooperated in providing their members with a Legislative Action Center at each of the three Web sites. These are based on the same technology so that members can move from one Legislative Action Center to another without having to learn a new system. If you are a PHADA or CLPHA member, please check out their Legislative Action Centers at www.clpha.org and www.phada.org. NAHRO members may visit their Action Center at www.nahro.org.

It will be helpful to your respective housing associations and the industry to make use of these legislative action tools to support their joint efforts to improve funding for public housing and press for a workable implementation of Asset Management.