In response to seriously delayed federal rental assistance payments for June and projected for July, LeadingAge on June 26 sent a letter to the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requesting that the federal government take immediate action to resolve the payment delays.

Approximately 1,000 monthly rental assistance payments to affordable housing communities (roughly 6% of the country’s project-based rental assistance portfolio) were weeks late for June. While most of the outstanding rental subsidy was paid in the middle of the month, some communities are still missing payments as the month wraps up and additional delays now projected for July. The payment shortfall for housing communities across the country is impacting tens of thousands of households in affordable housing, many with extremely low incomes.

HUD maintains rental assistance contracts with private, multifamily housing communities and pays monthly project-based subsidy to support affordable housing for older adults and other households with low incomes. Housing communities rely on the monthly rental assistance payments from HUD to pay housing staff, property mortgages, community utilities, and more.

LeadingAge and our membership of affordable senior housing providers consider timely monthly subsidy payments to be a non-negotiable component of the public-private partnerships that undergird our country’s affordable housing system. With payment issues now projected to continue for a second month for thousands of communities, we continue to urge HUD and the White House to act as quickly as possible to resume funding apportionment and obligation to rental assistance contracts across the country.