[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 205 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 55324-55327]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-28080]
[[Page 55323]]
_______________________________________________________________________
Part II
Department of Housing and Urban Development
_______________________________________________________________________
24 CFR Part 3500, et al.
Strengthening the Role of Fathers in Public Housing Families; Proposed
Rule
Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 205 / Thursday, October 23, 1997 /
Proposed Rules
[[Page 55324]]
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
24 CFR Parts 5, 960, 964, 984, and 990
[Docket No. FR-4087-A-03]
RIN 2577-AB68
Strengthening the Role of Fathers in Public Housing Families
AGENCY: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian
Housing, HUD.
ACTION: Advance notice of proposed rulemaking; Notice of withdrawal.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: The Department published an Advance Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (ANPRM) on the subject of ``Strengthening the Role of
Fathers in Public Housing Families'' on July 30, 1996 (61 FR 39812),
with a 45-day comment period. The ANPRM invited public comments on
measures, practices, and authorizations to local public housing
agencies in support of efforts to encourage absentee parents,
especially but not necessarily limited to absentee fathers, to play a
more responsible social and economic role in the lives of families in
PHA-owned or assisted developments. Upon review of comments received in
response to that ANPRM, the Department has determined that it is
unnecessary to go forward with a regulatory change at this point, but
that the purposes described in the ANPRM and in this Notice would be
best served by proceeding with the development of less formal guidance
material, described below.
DATES: The ANPRM on the subject of ``Strengthening the Role of Fathers
in Public Housing Families,'' published on July 30, 1996 at 61 FR 39812
is withdrawn as of October 23, 1997.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Richard A. Trebelhorn, Technical
Assistance and Planning Division, HUD, Room 4236, 451 Seventh Street
SW, Washington, DC 20410-5000, telephone (202) 708-3642 (this is not a
toll-free number). A telecommunications device for hearing- and speech-
impaired persons (TTY) is available at 1-800-877-8339 (Federal
Information Relay Services). (This is a toll-free number.)
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The Department published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
(ANPRM) on the subject of ``Strengthening the Role of Fathers in Public
Housing Families'' on July 30, 1996 (61 FR 39812), with a 45-day
comment period. HUD received comments from 32 entities, most of which
were State or local housing agencies, and the substance of those
comments is summarized below. In addition to comments received in
response to the ANPRM, HUD convened a roundtable discussion on this
subject in early September 1996, in which knowledgeable housing
professionals and academics shared their thinking on measures that
would encourage more responsible roles for fathers, and that would
facilitate reuniting public housing families.
The comments on the ANPRM and comments and observations from the
roundtable generally suggest that a formal rulemaking might be
unnecessary, and in the absence of a compelling need for regulatory
action, the Department has determined not to proceed with publication
of a Proposed Rule at this time. Therefore, consistent with the
majority of the comments on the ANPRM and the draft proposed rule, and
with the recommendations of the roundtable, HUD will sponsor
development of a ``best practices'' guidebook or source book for use in
local fatherhood initiatives. HUD, or a contractor under HUD
supervision, will visit a substantial number of sites--probably 12 to
15 locations beginning with and in addition to the known programs in
Baltimore and Hartford--to gather information on best practices,
procedures, attributes, and similar program elements or components of
local programs compatible with the Department's goal of strengthening
the role of fathers in public housing families.
Based on information gathered in the course of the site visits,
information developed from the roundtable and comments on the ANPRM,
and any other information that becomes available, HUD will develop a
guidebook or source book of materials for PHA managers planning a
fatherhood initiative. The materials in this guide or source book will
emphasize ``how- to'' information on program modules or components that
can be replicated, as opposed to narrative descriptions or case
studies; case studies are expected to be used for illustrative
purposes, but are not to be the principal focus of the research project
or the resulting guide or source book.
Using inputs from the roundtable and the best practices study, HUD
will use contracted resources to develop an Implementation Guide and a
training package for use by PHAs electing to develop and implement a
``fatherhood initiative.''
The Guide would be a compendium of current thinking, reflecting but
not duplicating the best practices material referenced above, that
would be useful to housing authorities in initiating a local program to
encourage or facilitate fathers' playing a more positive and
responsible role in public housing families and communities. The
training and implementation component is expected to include a short
video to introduce HUD's interest in strengthening the role of fathers
in public housing families, suitable for use with tenant groups and HUD
field office staff as well as PHA personnel. It will also include
detailed lesson plans and training materials for program managers at
the PHA and project-site levels.
II. HUD Responses to Public Comments on the ANPRM
In drafting the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, HUD assumed
an initial goal of reuniting families and bringing absent fathers back
into their children's homes. Responses to the ANPRM and explicit
comments in HUD's roundtable suggest that the ANPRM blurred necessary
distinctions among several important goals. These include, at least,
(1) facilitating the return of absentee fathers to their families; (2)
encouraging men who are living intermittently or clandestinely with
their public housing families to come forward and assert a responsible
social and financial role; (3) assuring that estranged parents accept
financial responsibility for their children in public housing; and (4)
making it possible for absentee fathers to connect or re-connect with
their children in public housing communities.
By subsuming these (and probably other) reasonable goals under a
general statement of support for ``re-uniting families,'' the ANPRM
assumed an active PHA role in areas and issues that generally are
beyond the authority and the capacity of local housing agencies. HUD
recognizes that the program outlined in the ANPRM required considerable
refinement. The Department recognizes that many of the activities that
would go into a local program for strengthening the role of fathers and
encouraging fathers to play responsible roles in their children's
growth and development fall more appropriately within the capacity and
responsibility of social service agencies outside the housing
authority.
Therefore, any further initiative in this area--including the
proposed best practices guide and implementation package--will
necessarily place less emphasis on a presumed role for a housing
authority. This Notice identifies
[[Page 55325]]
PHA actions or activities already authorized in statute and/or
regulation that can be employed to further the goals described in the
ANPRM. The proposed best practices guidebook will address additional
measures that can be undertaken by a PHA and/or another service agency
or contractor, and the implications of such measures for PHA
management, including financial management.
The ANPRM invited comments on several specific items, and most
respondents commented on most of those elements. Those comments are
summarized, under the subject area heading of the ANPRM that is
addressed by the comment, as follows:
1. To the extent that it may be necessary to encourage responsible
behavior by an absent parent, HAs would be encouraged, but not
necessarily required, to:
a. Provide a priority for transfer among HA properties;
Summary: The vast majority of respondents pointed out that PHAs
already have the latitude to permit, authorize, or require transfers
among their properties, and that such policies are spelled out in
tenant selection and assignment plans; no further regulation should be
necessary.
Response: HUD accepts these comments, and acknowledges that
transfer policies are best left to local decision-making. HUD will
continue to examine the desirability or practicality of including in a
transfer policy explicit recognition of requested transfers that would
result in a family's better access to day care, or more convenient
access to employment or job training, especially in cases involving a
returning parent.
b. Offer a priority for a Section 8 certificate or voucher
(consistent with the principles of the Family Unification program);
Summary: Most respondents were opposed to Federal preferences in
any guise, including this one. Several comments suggested that a
preference, especially a new preference, was unfair to applicants
already on waiting lists, some for several years. Other comments made
the point that offering public housing residents a priority for Section
8 placement creates vacancies in public housing.
Response: HUD accepts these criticisms, and does not plan to
emphasize use of tenant selection preferences to further the goals
described in the ANPRM.
c. Exempt from rent determinations the incremental income of the
returning parent for a period of up to three years without adverse
effect on the HA's eligibility for operating subsidy under the PFS.
Summary: Income disregards, rent forgiveness, and rent credits
elicited more comment than almost any other part of the ANPRM. Only two
respondents--both state housing agencies--opposed incentives of this
kind, and several respondents recommended expansion of PHAs' latitude
to disregard incremental income from a new job, income from a second
job or second wage-earner (whether a new family member or not), or any
earned income.
Response: Under section 402 of the 1996 Continuing Resolution, PHAs
are permitted to adopt optional earned income deductions in determining
adjusted income (but are not eligible for commensurate increases in
eligibility for operating subsidy); this provision was extended in
section 201 of the Department's 1997 Appropriations Act and is in
effect at least through September 30, 1997 pending additional
legislation.
In addition, the Department's recently-published Optional Earned
Income Exclusions Final Rule, published May 5, 1997 (62 FR 24334),
permits PHAs to adopt an exclusion for earned income; PFS Operating
Subsidy will not increase to cover rental income reductions resulting
from such exclusions, but will allow a PHA that achieves net increases
in rents from earned income to maintain eligibility for subsidy up to
an amount equal to the PFS operating subsidy shortfall (see also the
Interim Rule on Performance Funding System--Incentives, published in
the Federal Register on September 30, 1996 61 FR 51178).
2. To obtain any benefits or incentives offered by an HA program, a
returning parent would be required to enter into a formal agreement or
contract, binding him or her to comply with the requirements of the HA
lease and to make and honor commitments to family members and to the HA
community. HUD requested public comments on the nature of such an
agreement, and on the range of obligations that could reasonably be
demanded of a returning parent. Should HUD create a model form of
agreement for this purpose? Are there certain minimum requirements that
HUD could itemize, and permit HAs to make additions to reflect local
interests? Or should HAs be given maximum latitude to develop their own
standards and agreements?
Summary: Responses to this item were nearly as varied as comments
on income disregards, ranging from specific recommendations for
contract language, to suggestions that all the requirements for
positive parental behavior are already written into marriage vows and
lawful marriage ought to be a major goal of fatherhood initiatives.
Response: HUD's first conclusion is that the ANPRM was too narrowly
focused to have introduced this subject as a contract between the PHA
and a returning parent/father. As was correctly pointed out in the
comments, the PHA already has a lease with the subject family, and if a
returning father joins that household, he becomes subject to that
lease. If there is another agreement, securing additional rights or
privileges beyond those of the leasehold, that agreement would be
between the program participant--the returning parent, presumably--and
the service agency managing the fatherhood program. That service agency
may or may not be a PHA; experiences related at HUD's roundtable
suggested that in many cases, if not most often, the service agency
would not be a PHA, but a wholly separate community services entity
whose clientele could include PHA families but would not be limited to
PHA families. The substance and the enforcement of any such additional
agreement, and the range of benefits secured by the agreement--
employment, employment counseling, job training, behavior counseling--
would be entirely between the signatories; neither HUD nor the PHA need
necessarily be involved in that agreement.
HUD anticipates that the ``best practices'' study will develop a
variety of agreements and components of agreements from which service
providers, including any PHAs that elect to manage their own fatherhood
initiative, can develop agreements suited to their specific situations.
A second major observation is that, particularly in the context of
returning parents and re-uniting families, agreements between the
absentee parent and the service agency are necessarily secondary to an
agreement between the public housing leaseholder and the absentee
parent. If the parent or grandparent is living in public housing with
the children, then as a practical matter, that person will exert far
more influence and control than the PHA or the service agency over the
terms under which the absentee parent establishes or re-establishes a
relationship with the children.
This observation also responds to several comments to the effect
that restoring an absent parent to a household is not necessarily a
good idea; sometimes the best resolution is for the absentee to remain
absent. HUD's goal in fostering local fatherhood
[[Page 55326]]
initiatives is to facilitate plans that will enable absentee parents,
especially fathers, to establish or re-establish positive social and/or
economic links with their children, but HUD also recognizes that any
such links must be mutually agreeable to the absentee and the custodial
parent.
Summary: There were specific comments to the effect that HUD and/or
the PHAs should encourage, or even require, lawful marriages as part of
this effort.
Response: The policies and authorizations incident to this
initiative are intended to facilitate the establishment or re
establishment of positive social and economic links between absentee
parents and their children in public housing communities; any explicit
prescription concerning linkages or relationships among adult residents
is beyond the scope of HUD rulemaking.
3. HUD's position is that participants must be subject to
admissions screening, to assure the rest of the community that the new
or re-joining family member would not constitute any special threat to
the peace and quiet of the neighborhood.
Summary: Respondents were nearly unanimous in favor of rigorous
screening of all applicants, including persons joining or re-joining
resident families.
Response: HUD will instruct developers of subsequent guidance
material to make explicit that housing authorities have the right to
review and to reject persons proposing to join (or re-join) resident
families, irrespective of the applicant's relationship to the resident
family or of any prior leasehold interest enjoyed by that person: if
someone has left the household, return is not necessarily automatic.
Summary: Several comments suggested that there was an apparent
conflict between the ``one-strike'' provisions of section 9 of the
Housing Opportunity Program Extension Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-120,
approved March 28, 1996) (the ``Extension Act'') and out-reach efforts
to engage absentee parents in public housing communities.
Response: HUD has reviewed those comments and the cited statute,
and is of the opinion that there is no conflict between this initiative
and the Extension Act. Section 16(e)(2) of the Extension Act sets forth
several exceptions to the Extension Act's rule that Public Housing
authorities must deny assistance to persons who have a pattern of use
of a controlled substance or a pattern of abuse of alcohol that
interferes with the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of
the premises by others. The Extension Act states that in determining
whether to deny occupancy or assistance, a housing authority may
consider whether an individual:
(A) Has successfully completed a supervised drug or alcohol
rehabilitation program and is no longer engaging in the use of a
controlled substance or abuse of alcohol (as applicable); or
(B) Has otherwise been rehabilitated successfully and is no
longer engaging in the use of a controlled substance or abuse of
alcohol (as applicable); or
(C) Is participating in a supervised drug or alcohol
rehabilitation program (as applicable) and is no longer engaging in
the illegal use of a controlled substance or abuse of alcohol (as
applicable).
For purposes of screening tenants who would join or re-join public
housing resident households, the PHA should take into consideration an
applicant's participation in a Fatherhood Initiative. Where that
services or counseling program includes a substance abuse counseling
component, the housing authority may, but is not required to, accept
that as compliance with the rehabilitation provisions of the one-strike
limitations in section 16(e)(2), and permit an exemption from the
prohibitions of sections 6(r) and 16(e)(1) of the United States Housing
Act of 1937 (1937 Act).
In addition to screening for admission or re-admission to residency
in a public housing community, the issue of screening for acceptance
into an employment, job training, or other social service program was
subsumed in the ANPRM's reference to ``screening.'' In response to
comments on the ANPRM and information shared at the roundtable, the
Department recognizes that criteria for participation in a services
program are not necessarily the same as tenant selection criteria. HUD
anticipates that the best practices study will include a variety of
selection factors and screening techniques from which service
providers, including any PHAs that elect to manage their own fatherhood
initiative, can develop procedures suited to their specific situations.
4. Returning parents, or a parent newly accepting a responsible
role in a family, would be required to participate in a parenting and/
or counseling program. To the extent that some returning parents may
have been involved in domestic violence or abuse, such counseling or
training must have been completed before admission or re-admission to
the HA housing. Parenting training or counseling would be allowable
budget costs for the HA.
Summary: Respondents were generally in favor of parent training and
counseling, and not necessarily limited to new or returning parents,
but several PHAs objected to the suggestion that such services could be
operated or financed by the housing authority.
Response: HUD's response is to remind all concerned that certain
PHA-provided tenant services and management of external services are
already allowable costs under PFS procedures, at least to the extent
that such services are part of an approved Family Self Sufficiency plan
under section 23 of the 1937 Act.
Where participation in a parenting class, anti-abuse counseling, or
any other sort of behavior counseling is a component of a non-PHA
service agency's program, the PHA has the latitude to accept or reject
an applicant for admission (or re-admission) to public housing,
irrespective of the applicant's participation in the training or
counseling program, in accordance with the PHA's tenant selection and
screening policies or procedures.
5. The Hartford Family Reunification model includes an explicit
requirement that returning parents be and remain free of substance
abuse, including provisions for pre-admission testing and subsequent
random testing for substance abuse. Testing is at the expense of the
housing authority. HUD is interested in public comments on such drug
abstinence and drug testing requirements and policies.
Summary: As stated in the ANPRM, the discussion of drug abstinence
and drug testing unfortunately blurs the distinction between public
housing residency versus participation in employment, training, and
services programs. Responding housing authorities were nearly unanimous
in opposition to substance abuse testing requirements for returning
fathers (although a few comments were positive toward universal
substance abuse testing). Negative comments cited issues of
discrimination against a particular segment of PHAs' clientele, the
inappropriateness of PHAs' involvement in medical processes, PHAs' lack
of capacity to manage or operate a substance abuse testing or
identification program, and the costs of such an undertaking.
Response: Where a service provider operates a fatherhood initiative
that includes a substance abuse testing component, existing regulations
authorize PHAs to take into account the results of testing for
controlled substances in screening potential residents, including
parents seeking to
[[Page 55327]]
re-establish residency with their families.
PHAs can also condition continued rent abatement or income
disregard benefits on a resident's successful participation in an
employment, training, or services program, including success in
abstinence from controlled substances where that abstinence is a
condition of the program.
Dated: October 17, 1997.
Kevin Emanuel Marchman,
Acting Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing.
[FR Doc. 97-28080 Filed 10-22-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4210-33-P
