The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now requiring all Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) and owners participating in HUD-funded housing to immediately begin verifying the citizenship of their tenants.
The new directive follows an audit that found nearly 200,000 tenants required eligibility verification, nearly 25,000 listed as tenants were deceased, and nearly 6,000 were ineligible non-American tenants.
Within the next 30 days, PHAs and owners must review their EIV-SAVE Tenant Match Report that verifies they accurately reported individuals’ citizenship or immigration status to determine eligibility, and to initiate corrective actions where there is a discrepancy. PHAs and owners who fail to comply with the directive will be subject to sanctions.
HUD added that it planned recapture funding for payments made on behalf of ineligible and deceased tenants.
“Today’s action to verify the immigration eligibility of all HUD-assisted households is a major step forward to ensure we put American families first and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse,” said HUD Assistant Secretary of Public and Indian Housing Ben Hobbs. “There are hundreds of thousands of American families on housing waitlists across the country. It is essential we prioritize our limited resources to eligible families only.”
The average wait time for eligible US Citizens to access public housing is 2 – 4 years! Per the federal government, “undocumented individuals, those with expired visas, or those on student/tourist visas do not qualify for federal housing subsidies.” These people should never have been able to live in public housing in the first place. Shouldn’t all ineligible people be removed so that eligible people can access public housing which could be a good step to alleviating the affordable housing crisis facing America.