Comment Submitted by Kathee Bessinger, San Diego Housing Commission

Comments regarding the HUD proposed rule “Refinement of Income and Rent Determination Requirements in Public and Assisted Housing” issued on October 15, 2009; submitted by San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC), Rental Assistance Department. Thank you for providing us the opportunity to comment on this proposed rule. SDHC supports the proposed changes regarding disclosure and documentation of social security numbers and clarification of HUD’s records retention requirements. We respectfully submit the following comments regarding the mandatory use of the EIV system as well as the need for additional resources for combating program violations, fraud and abuse. EIV System: The following proposed change regarding the use of EIV is consistent with the original proposed rule published January 27, 2007 to change the definition of “anticipated future income” to “actual income received”. However, it does not appear consistent with the October 15, 2009 proposed rule: “5.233 (a)(s) Processing entities must use HUD’s EIV system in its entirety: (i) As a third party source to verify tenant employment and income information during mandatory reexaminations or recertifications of family composition.” Since HUD no longer intends to change the definition of income, much of the data provided by EIV will be too old to use as a third party source to verify anticipated tenant employment and income information. We ran an EIV report for a household on 10/29/09 and it provided wage information through the first quarter of 2009, over six (6) months old. The new hire information is more current; however, it only provides the name and address of the employer. Follow-up is required to verify the amount of wages. Our experience is that the value of EIV is that it identifies income information that may not have been provided by the family. The “new” way of doing business that was disseminated in HUD’s April 30, 2008 webcast is a verification process that incorporates EIV in a sensible manner: • Tenant reports income and provides current documents • PHA consults EIV system, and prints income details report (include in tenant file) • If additional information is not needed, PHA uses current tenant-provided documents to calculate anticipated income. This method has worked well for SDHC. Therefore, it is our suggestion that the wording of the proposed regulation more clearly convey EIV’s role in the verification process. Rather than being the third party verification, it is a required tool in the verification process for determining the completeness and accuracy of the tenant reported income. Combating Program Violations, Fraud and Abuse: SDHC uses EIV as an integral part of our Section 8 Program administration. Our staff reviews and follows-up on the data provided in the various reports from the EIV system. We regularly identify and resolve discrepancies involving unreported income, multiple subsidies and deceased tenants. There is no question that EIV has significantly expanded our arsenal for identifying fraud and program abuse. However, the addition of this valuable tool has increased our administrative workload. In addition to pursuing unreported income utilizing EIV, the Housing Commission investigates other program violations including unauthorized household members, subleasing, violent criminal activity, illegal drug activity, providing false information and owner fraud. It would be helpful to have full time investigative/ paralegal staff available for pursuing the more significant and complex cases. We suggest that HUD make available grants to PHAs that are earmarked for providing additional resources and investigative/paralegal staffing for combating fraud and program abuse.