While focusing on increasing and improving Affordable Housing services, the industry continues to face complex challenges in the coming years.

• There are currently over 4 million affordable housing units in the United States today with funding provided in the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 to add 1.5 million more. (1,2)
• Industry spends approximately $1.68 billion dollars annually on compliance management. (3)
• 61% of all fraud investigative cases opened by OIG involve Public, Indian, and Multifamily housing costing HUD and taxpayers millions of dollars each year. (4)
• High compliance error rates of more than 5% resulting in wasteful subsidy overpayments of approximately $250 million annually.

Owners and operators:  rai

• The average affordable housing site manager devotes over 40% of their time on compliance paperwork at their desk. By comparison, only 15% of their time is spent on the active management of the physical assets and Resident relations.
• Penalties for non-compliance are greater today with HUD plans to raise the qualified Tenant Rental Assistance Certification System (TRACS) submission rate from 90 to 95%, and fewer Contact Administrators are paying for partially completed or corrected Special Claims. Tax credit recaptures due to non-compliance are also at an all-time high.
• Costs for training, processing, and internal compliance monitoring are spiraling out of control due to a competitive labor and affordable housing market.
• Compliance is a competitive necessity for owners and managers of affordable housing.  Today's competitive advantage resides in marketing and maintaining HIGH occupancy level / LOW turnover.
• Since HUDs mandate to 'go paperless', the time to process a certification, move-in, or move-out has increased by 50% with managers now spending over 75% of their day sitting in front of a PC leaving little time to meet with residents.
   

1U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (2009, July 20). Review of Section 8 Affordable Housing Units.  Retrieved July 20, 2009, from

      http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/

2National Low Income Housing Coalition. (2009, July 20). Review of National Housing Trust Fund. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from
      http://www.nlihc.org/template/page.cfm?id=40

3RightSource Compliance. (2009, July 20). RightSource Research. Retrieved July 20, 2009, from
      http://www.rightsourcecompliance.com/research.html

4U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General Semiannual Report to Congress, United States Congress, No. 61 HUD-2009-11-OIG

      http://www.hud.gov/offices/oig