Legislative Update

RENT RELIEF RECAPTURE

An update on Harris County/City of Houston Rent Relief Recapture.

By STEPHANIE GRAVES, HAA Legislative Chair, with BRADLEY PEPPER, Vice President of Government Affairs

AS MANY HAA members know, the TDHCA’s Texas Rent Relief (TRR) Program and the Houston/Harris County Emergency Rental Assistance Program have issued recapture requests requiring owners to pay back certain relief payments received over the last year.

The HAA Government Affairs team has been working to address confusion around the rental assistance recapture requirements from both local and state agencies. This is a complicated issue and involves multiple state and local agencies, as well as the U.S. Treasury, as these agencies must follow Treasury guidelines.

While HAA has been working on this issue with the various program administrators, we have also met with elected officials at the local, state and federal levels to educate them on the issues that recapture is causing and the negative effects on their constituents. Additionally, we have been working with TAA to communicate these issues to TDHCA, as well as with NAA to inform the Treasury Department.

In a positive development for those properties in Houston and Harris County, we were told recently by a representative of the Houston/Harris County program that recapture efforts are currently paused for any state/local duplicate payments for which the Houston/ Harris County program was the second payer of the duplicate funds.

The Houston/Harris County program is developing a process through which a multifamily resident can update their application to allow for allocation of payments to additional months, with an associated reduction in recapture requirements. It has been reported to us that the new process is scheduled to be launched toward the end of May. Applicants with existing duplication will be prioritized. They have no current plans to attempt to return recouped funds to apartment owners or residents.

While this is a good sign, please note that this will only affect recapture requests from the Houston/Harris County program. This “fix” does not currently apply to recapture requests from TRR or any other local programs.

We are also working with the Houston/Harris County program to provide a webinar to help educate HAA members on the current and future status of rent relief funds moving forward, so stay tuned. For more information or questions regarding the Houston-Harris County Emergency Rental Assistance Program please call their hotline at 713-874-6609.

There are some counties in our region that still have rent relief funds available and are processing applications. For more information, please visit our website at www.haaonline.org.

Join HAA PAC Today

In my role as Legislative Chair for 2022, I have made it my goal to increase our HAA PAC membership participation beyond what we have seen in recent years. The number was set at 250 members. We are halfway through the year and have already reached 220. We had 144 total for 2021. So, we are doing great so far. That said, we need more participation.

We know that politics is not everyone’s thing. We know that sometimes it can be confusing, intimidating and quite frankly, ugly. However you feel about politics personally, just know that the decisions made by our elected officials directly impacts our industry and the jobs we do every day.

This is an important election year. We will elect every state elected official, from governor to state representative, as well as most of our county elected officials, from county judge to justice of the peace. It is critical that we continue to elect candidates that are pro-industry and follow the law.

If you have not joined the HAA PAC, this is the year to add your voice to ours and help us spread our message and our story. Few organizations engage in the justice of the peace races that are so critical to our industry, and your support can mean the difference between a judge who follows the law and one who does not.

The HAA PAC allows us to pool our resources and support the most qualified, proindustry candidates for local and state office.

We have screened and endorsed candidates for the Primary Elections already this year and will continue to do so as we approach the November General Election. This gives PAC members an opportunity to meet and hear directly from these candidates on how they will deal with issues related to the industry. Visit www.haaonline.org/HAAPAC for more information. For as little as $100, you can be a part of this important effort to keep our industry strong.

If you have a regulatory problem or question, call the HAA main line at 713-595-0300 and ask for Government Affairs. If a particular code requirement or issue concerns you, let us know by emailing Bradley at bpepper@haaonline.org.