Department of Housing and Urban Development

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is the Federal agency responsible for national policy and programs that address America's housing needs, that improve and develop the Nation's communities, and enforce fair housing laws. HUD's business is helping create a decent home and suitable living environment for all Americans, and it has given America's communities a strong national voice at the Cabinet level. HUD plays a major role in supporting homeownership by underwriting homeownership for lower- and moderate-income families through its mortgage insurance programs. KRA has performed the following work for HUD

Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity

Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP) and Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) Annual Training.
As a condition of their grant funding, agencies under FHIP and FHAP must participate in annual training sponsored by HUD, the purpose of which is to share information and technical knowledge, and to develop skills in the administration of fair housing laws and programs. KRA provided administrative, logistical, and meeting planning support for this annual training event for 250 participants.

Office of Management and Planning

HUD Best Practices 2000 Symposium.
KRA was responsible for all pre-, onsite, and post-conference support for this 4-day Symposium, which attracted over 5,000 participants, honoring the accomplishments of 100 recipients of HUD’s Best Practice Award. Major components of the program arranged for by KRA included Best Practice Workshops, an Exhibit Hall with Poster Session, a technology center, site visits to local best-practice facilities, and an awards ceremony.

Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R)

Study of Rent Reasonableness Requirement.
KRA examined rent comparability determinations that housing authorities must make under the Section 8 Tenant-Based Assistance program by reviewing housing authority records, and conducting telephone surveys and an independent assessment of rent comparability for a nationally representative sample of Section 8 certificate and voucher recipients.

Performance of GSEs on a Metropolitan Level.
KRA studied Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac the two major housing-related government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) mortgage purchases to investigate the possibility of adopting goals for the GSEs at the metropolitan level, thereby assisting HUD policy makers as they re-evaluated GSE housing goals for the future.

Quality Control for Rental Assistance Subsidies.
KRA provided updated estimates on the type, severity, and cost of errors in the income re-certification and rent calculation process for public housing and Section 8 certificate and voucher programs, and analyzed changes in the type and severity of such errors since the previous study.

Assisted Housing Quality Control Study.
KRA analyzed data collected from 2,500 residents of assisted housing to identify various errors, error rates, the dollar cost of the errors, and a host of concerns, including the extent to which households in assisted housing are over- or under-housed relative to HUD's occupancy standards.

Evaluation of Service Coordinator Program (SCP).
KRA evaluated the process by which the SCP was implemented in HUD's Section 202 and Section 8 housing projects. KRA assessed projects, residents in the program, the individual SCPs, program implementation and resident satisfaction with the program and identified roadblocks to program implementation.

Inventory of Violence Prevention Initiatives That Have Been Demonstrated to Work in Public Housing.
KRA provided directors of public housing authorities and others with resources including A Guide to Evaluating Crime Control Programs in Public Housing to plan local initiatives for reducing violent criminal behavior in public housing and similar environments.

Office of Housing

Assistance to HUD's Mortgage Market Reports.
KRA contributed to improving mortgage market analysis in this project, which focused on the Survey of Mortgage Lending Activity (SMLA), a monthly data series that details mortgage holding and gross flows for different types of lenders and different types of loans.

Housing-Related Project:
National Community Reinvestment Coalition

Best and Worst Lenders Analysis.
KRA examined mortgage loan denials and origination rates in 20 metropolitan statistical areas using data compiled under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Results were used to update NCRC’s data series on the performance of major lenders in serving the credit needs of minority and low-/moderate-income households.