On March 22, HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing released new tools for residents and owners. HUD has a new guide for tenants and owners, “Rights and Responsibilities for Tenants & Property Owners” and a new guide for tenants, “Managing Your Finances During COVID-19 Pandemic.” Both are available in English and Spanish.

The Rights and Responsibilities guide is an easy-to-read breakdown of HUD and CDC guidance with “rights and responsibilities” columns for owners and tenants on several COVID-19 topics: keeping units safe, keeping common areas safe, accessing units for repairs or inspection, eviction protection, protections and accessibility modifications for people with disabilities, and moving.

The Rights and Responsibilities guide does not offer any new program guidelines or flexibilities, but is arranged in a way that might make existing HUD and CDC guidance for multifamily owners more clear. The guide does, in response to ways owners can increase accessibility, suggest that “housing providers may wish to consider installing internet capability or other making other property improvements to make it easier for tenants to communicate remotely with property staff, healthcare providers, and others.” LeadingAge has been urging HUD Multifamily to allow greater use of CARES COVID-19 support funds for the installation and service fees for wireless internet; perhaps this language in the new guide points to a greater openness to HUD to this suggestion.

Read the new Rights and Responsibilities for Tenants & Property Owners here in English and here in Spanish.

The Managing Your Finances guide provides phone numbers, websites, and brief explanations of programs to help tenants answer questions on, what can you do if you can’t pay your rent, what can you do if you can’t pay your rent, what can you do if you cannot pay your other debts, such as car loans or student loans, and what federal assistance is available to help you through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the new Managing Your Finances During COVID-19 Pandemic here in English and here in Spanish.