FACT SHEET: HUD Year 1

Take a look and read the details:

HUD NEWS                                                                                     

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – Marcia L. Fudge, Secretary

Office of Public Affairs, Washington, DC 20410                     

HUD No. 22-011                                                                                                              FOR RELEASE

HUD Public Affairs                                                                                        Thursday        

202-708-0685                                                                                                 January 20, 2022

HUD.gov/Press

FACT SHEET: HUD Year 1

 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) over the last year has taken bold action in pursuit of the agency’s mission to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes. These actions aligned with key Biden-Harris Administration priorities including ensuring equity, removing barriers to homeownership, expanding the nation’s housing supply, and keeping Americans housed. Below are the agency’s top accomplishments from the last year.

 

Launched a Whole-of-Government Effort to Ensure All Americans Are Treated Fairly in the Home Appraisals Process. On June 1, President Biden tasked Secretary Fudge with leading a first-of-its-kind interagency initiative to address inequity in home appraisals and help families of color build wealth. In partnership with Ambassador Susan Rice and the Domestic Policy Council, HUD created the Property Appraisal and Valuation Equity (PAVE) Task Force, bringing together federal agencies to identify and utilize all levers at their disposal to root out discrimination in the home appraisal process. The report to the President will document the scope of the problem and provide detailed, actionable agency commitments.

 

Launched All-Hands-on-Deck Effort to Address Homelessness Crisis. On September 20, Secretary Fudge launched House America, a national partnership with other Administration officials, mayors, county officials, governors, and tribal nation leaders across the nation. The plan works with those leaders to use American Rescue Plan (ARP) resources to re-house at least 100,000 people experiencing homelessness and add at least 20,000 new affordable and permanent supportive housing units to address homelessness into the development pipeline by the end of 2022.

 

Prevented Evictions and Foreclosures. HUD helped prevent eviction of HUD-assisted households and stabilize families struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic by deploying the historic funding made available under the Consolidated Appropriations Act and ARP to help keep families stably housed. HUD worked closely with the White House and the Treasury Department, providing the Department’s expertise to inform Emergency Rental Assistance Program policy guidance and lift up best practices. HUD helped homeowners behind on their mortgages stay in their homes by extending mortgage forbearance.  As borrowers leave forbearance, HUD worked with Treasury to integrate the Homeowner Assistance Fund with new policies released by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to help struggling homeowners keep their homes. As a result of HUD and other federal government actions and supports, evictions and foreclosures were well below historic averages.

 

Stood Up a New $5 Billion HOME-ARP Program to Assist Some of The Country’s Most Vulnerable Populations. The Office of Community Planning and Development has made funding available to 651 state and local governments, which will be used to reduce homelessness and increase housing stability by providing funding for rental housing development, acquisition and development of non-congregate shelter, tenant-based rental assistance, and supportive services.  HUD released a portion of grantee administrative funds at the outset of the program to better support the planning activities that lead to effective use of grant funding.

 

Provided Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHVs). As part of ARP, HUD provided 70,000 housing choice vouchers to local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs). These vouchers assist individuals and families who are homeless, at-risk of homelessness, fleeing, or attempting to flee, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking, are formerly incarcerated, or were recently homeless or have a high risk of housing instability.  HUD requires PHAs to partner with local Continuums of Care to ensure that eligible households are referred to this voucher program.

 

Removed Barriers to Homeownership for Those with Student Loan Debt. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) updated its policy on student loan monthly payment calculations to remove barriers and provide more access to affordable single-family FHA-insured mortgage financing for creditworthy individuals with student loan debt, which has disproportionate impact on communities of color. The updates removed the previous requirement that lenders calculate a borrower’s student loan monthly payment of one percent of the outstanding student loan balance for student loans that are not fully amortizing. The new policy bases the monthly payment on the actual student loan payment, more closely aligning FHA policies with industry standards.

 

Set the Stage for Increased Fair Housing and Lending Enforcement and Access. HUD signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to kick off a historic collaboration on fair housing and fair lending enforcement and oversight engagement with the FHFA-regulated entities including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. This comprehensive effort will ensure deeper collaboration on fair housing investigations and enable data sharing to help strengthen and affirmatively further fair housing for the mortgage industry. In addition, HUD Published a legal memorandum making it clear that certain Special Purpose Credit Programs (SPCPs) that are lawful under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) generally are not barred by the Fair Housing Act, allowing their use by lenders to expand access to credit in underserved communities. 

 

Took Action to Increase Housing Supply and Access to Affordable Housing. HUD restarted its Housing Finance Agency (HFA) risk-sharing program with Treasury’s Federal Financing Bank (FFB) on September 1 to develop more affordable rental homes. The program allows HFAs to obtain FHA insurance on multifamily mortgages they underwrite, with HUD and the HFA sharing the risk of any potential loss. FHA anticipates that approximately 20,000 affordable rental homes will be created or preserved through the program through 2027. HUD also made more single-family homes available to individuals, families, and non-profit organizations – rather than large investors – by prioritizing homeownership and limiting sale to large investors of certain FHA-insured and HUD-owned properties. Finally, HUD released new research on actions that state and local governments can take to increase their housing supply and is developing a Housing Supply Toolkit filled with easy-to-implement strategies for grantees to deploy HUD resources to address supply and affordability challenges that have been deepened by the pandemic.

 

Restored the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Requirement. The Department published an interim final rule (IFR) that went into effect on July 31^st to restore the implementation of the Fair Housing Act’s AFFH requirement. Under the restored AFFH regulatory definition in the IFR, HUD funding recipients must regularly certify compliance with the Fair Housing Act’s AFFH requirement and commit to taking steps to remedy their fair housing issues in making such certifications. The IFR helps HUD, 3,747 public housing authorities, and 1,200 state and local government grantees in the CDBG, HOME, and HOPWA programs fulfill their AFFH obligations under the Fair Housing Act. 

 

Strengthened Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI) Fund. HUD announced a historically strong Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund Report showing that, in addition to its emphasis on delivering relief options to homeowners financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, FHA continued to deliver on its mission of enabling homeownership for first-time and low- and moderate-income, and households of color. The Fund remains well positioned to withstand future economic events and endure the outcomes from the pandemic-induced delinquencies that remain in forbearance or are seriously delinquent. The percentage of first-time homebuyers using FHA insurance reached a new high and the share of mortgages insured by FHA to minority borrowers reached almost 42 percent of all FHA forward mortgage insurance endorsements. FHA served double the percentage of Black and Hispanic borrowers when compared to those served through mortgage originations by the rest of the housing market this past fiscal year.

Protected the LGBTQ+ Community from Housing Discrimination. On February 11th, HUD announced that it would interpret the Fair Housing Act to bar discrimination on the bases of sexual orientation and gender identity, consistent with President Biden’s Executive Order 13988 and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. This decision has expanded the protections of the Fair Housing Act to a community that has historically been subject to discrimination. Through its partner FHIPs and FHAPs agencies, HUD has processed 235 cases alleging sex discrimination due to gender identity and sexual orientation last year, nearly twice as many cases than last year.

 

Provided Housing Assistance and Supportive Services for Native Americans. The American Rescue Plan provides $750 million for assistance for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, helping reduce housing-related health risks during the pandemic.

 

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HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.

More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and http://espanol.hud.gov.

You can also connect with HUD on social media and follow Secretary Fudge on Twitter and Facebook or sign up for news alerts on HUD’s Email List.

CANCELLED: MAG Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee

Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee 1/27/2022 Meeting (Canceled)

SEE THE AIR QUALITY HERE:

================================================================

January 27, 2022, 1:30 PM

Materials

• Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee 1/27/2022 Meeting Cancellation Notice

Related Links

• Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee

The January 27, 2022 meeting of the MAG Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee has been canceled.

This is posted on the MAG website at https://azmag.gov/Event/31827.

NEWS FLASH...ICYMI: Arizona Sheriffs Request Immediate Action From Senators Sinema And Kelly To Mitigate Border Crisis

Looks like Governor Ducey is lining up in-state from local county sheriffs

"The Arizona Sheriff's Association yesterday released a letter to Senators Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema, echoing Governor Doug Ducey’s calls to Arizona’s congressional delegation to act now on border security.

 The letter followed an agreement from 11 county sheriffs during a meeting last week to support draft federal legislation prepared by the Governor’s Office that outlined a series of specific steps to bolster border security.

Read the full letter below:

Arizona Sheriffs Request Immediate Action From Senators Sinema And Kelly To Mitigate Border Crisis

Arizona Sheriff's Association January 19, 2022

Dear Senators Sinema and Kelly: As we enter a new year, we urge you to take action and not wait another day to address the border crisis in our home state. It is negligent to let another day, week, month, or year pass without Arizona’s US Senators leading on a solution to solve the revolving door border policy that negatively affects our state.  As Arizona’s elected law enforcement leaders across the state, we continue to see the border situation deteriorate and it is having real impacts on all of our communities. The border crisis is a clear national security concern, humanitarian crisis, public health crisis, and it’s fueling the drug epidemic in every state. We are sure you know the record-breaking statistics from this past year of failed border policies, but here are a few highlights to better understand the totality of the circumstances: This past year the US broke the record for most drug overdose deaths, with over 100,000 Americans dying of drug overdoses, an increase of 28.5% from the previous year. These drugs are coming through in massive quantities because of federal inaction. In FY21 CBP alone arrested illegal border crossers with dangerous previous convictions that include: 1,178 people with previous convictions for assault, 2,138 for illegal drug possession or trafficking, 825 for burglary, 1,629 for driving under the influence, 336 for illegal weapons possession, 60 for homicide, and 488 for sexual offenses. Just how many records have to be broken before the US Senate takes action to protect our Arizona communities? From the Yuma County farmers who have to throw away an entire field of crops due to illegal immigrants trespassing through their fields, to the parents in Pinal County dealing with the death of their teenagers due to fentanyl overdoses, to the Cochise County family of a woman killed in a car crash which was caused by a human smuggler transporting people illegally, these heartbreaking consequences are preventable.  Governor Ducey has drafted federal legislation that the Arizona Sheriff’s Association supports. We urge you to take immediate action to introduce it and work with your colleagues to get it to the President’s desk.  This legislation provides the minimal action that needs to be taken before any other effort to address our country’s drug problem will be effective. It includes the following provisions: Completion of the border wall, physical barriers and virtual surveillance; A requirement that asylum seekers who have traveled through another country must have attempted to claim asylum in that country; A requirement for asylum seekers to claim asylum at a port of entry; An increase in immigration judges; Additional funding for local law enforcement and humanitarian efforts; and That the federal government or its representatives must make clear that the United States’ borders are not open for immigration except through a port of entry and through legal means.  As the highest elected law enforcement leaders, we are calling on you for action. We have spent countless time briefing and giving tours to engaged congressional members from around the country who travel thousands of miles to learn from professionals about a border crisis, so we know there’s genuine interest in solving this problem. Now we need to hear from our United States Senators that you’re willing to engage and fix this problem. We need your support and we need it now! We stand ready to enforce the rule of law in Arizona and committed to protecting our counties, state, and nation, and we want you to join us. "

View the full letter online

Thank you, Governor's Office ======================================================================= NEWS FLASH ( Reference: https://www.azsheriffs.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=26 ) Posted on: January 19, 2022 ARIZONA SHERIFFS REQUEST IMMEDIATE ACTION FROM SENATORS SINEMA AND KELLY TO MITIGATE BORDER CRISIS January 19, 2022   Dear Senators Sinema and Kelly: As we enter a new year, we urge you to take action and not wait another day to address the border crisis in our home state. It is negligent to let another day, week, month, or year pass without Arizona’s US Senators leading on a solution to solve the revolving door border policy that negatively affects our state. . . Here's the sign-off: We stand ready to enforce the rule of law in Arizona and committed to protecting our counties, state, and nation, and we want you to join us.   Sincerely,                       Mark Dannels                                                 Mark Lamb President Arizona Sheriff’s Association                 Vice-President Arizona Sheriff’s Association Cochise County Sheriff                                     Pinal County Sheriff

Have Some Face Time...New Req for Filing IRS Taxes Online

You might like to know this

Cybersecurity

The IRS will soon make you use facial recognition to access your taxes online

The agency is using private company ID.me to verify taxpayers’ identities

By Kim Lyons@SocialKimLy Jan 20, 2022, 6:07pm EST

The Verge |

"The Internal Revenue Service will require people who access and pay their taxes online to enroll in a third-party facial recognition company starting this summer (h/t Krebs on Security). Even those who have already registered on IRS.gov with a username and password will have to provide a government ID, a copy of a utility bill, and a selfie to ID.me, the Virginia-based identity verification company. You’ll take a video selfie with whatever webcam or mobile device you’re using to sign up, which seems likely to cause problems for people with older hardware or who don’t have access to one.

According to the IRS, ID.me is a “trusted technology provider” of identity verification services. Anyone who already has an ID.me account from another government agency can sign in with those credentials. Brian Krebs created a new ID.me account and wrote in his post that the sign-up process was time-consuming and glitchy. He got stuck about halfway through the process and had to start again from the beginning, then was prompted to join a video call with an ID.me representative — with a wait time of nearly three and a half hours.

In its “privacy bill of rights,” ID.me says it doesn’t “sell, lead, or trade biometric data to any third parties or derive any profit from the sale, lease or trade of biometric data.”

> It can share information with its partners with users’ explicit permission, according to its website, and when you register for an ID.me account, you have to accept the company’s biometric consent policy.

> The company collects facial and voice biometrics to verify identity and protect against fraudulent behavior and to “comply with a request from law enforcement or government entities where not prohibited by law.”

> And even if you delete your ID.me account, the company may retain your biometric data for several years, depending on “the nature of the data and relevant legal or operational retention needs.”

You may remember ID.me from earlier in the pandemic; more than two dozen states use the company to verify people applying for unemployment benefits. Motherboard reported in June 2021 that ID.me failed to identify some applicants and that they had difficulty reaching anyone at the company to remedy their problem. ID.me CEO Blake Hall told The Verge at the time that it uses a system similar to Apple’s FaceID or the way a TSA agent would compare a passenger’s face to their ID at an airport."

RELATED CONTENT

Face Recognition Is Being Banned—but It’s Still Everywhere

Two dozen cities and states prohibit use of the tech. But it’s on phones and is increasingly used in airports and in banks. 

Tom Simonite

Wired |

"In November, voters in Bellingham, Washington, passed a ballot measure banning government use of face recognition technology. It added to a streak of such laws that started with San Francisco in 2019 and now number around two dozen.

The spread of such bans has inspired hope from campaigners and policy experts of a turn against an artificial intelligence technology that can lead to invasions of privacy or even wrongful arrest. Such feelings got a boost when Facebook unexpectedly announced on the day of the Bellingham vote that it would shutter its own face recognition system for identifying people in photos and videos, due to “growing societal concerns.”

[...] At least seven states adopted face recognition to verify the identity of people applying for assistance such as unemployment benefits. Even Facebook’s headline-grabbing shutdown of its face recognition features came with a caveat: The company said it will retain the underlying technology, because it might be useful in the future as a way to unlock devices or secure financial services.

This is the paradox of face recognition in 2021: The technology is banned in some places but increasingly normalized in others. That’s likely to continue, because face recognition is unregulated in most of the US, as there’s no federal law covering the technology. . .

> Apple’s Face ID phone unlock system may be the most widely deployed and used face recognition system, but US airports are forerunners in normalizing its use in public spaces and interactions with the government.

> CBP first deployed the technology in 2016 in partnership with Delta Air Lines at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta to check the identity of people boarding international flights. The program has steadily expanded since, but it accelerated in 2021, in part because the agency determined that touchless technology was more valuable during a pandemic.

At the end of 2020, CBP had implemented face recognition gates for incoming travelers at 17 airports. This year it added the technology at 182 airports, which the agency estimates will cover 99 percent of inbound air travel to the US. The program stems from legislation passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks requiring biometric identity checks for anyone entering or exiting the US. Facial recognition is used to check outgoing international travelers at 32 US airports. CBP says it has processed more than 100 million travelers using face recognition and prevented more than 1,000 “imposters” from entering the US at air and land borders. . .

> Finance companies are also showing interest in face recognition to speed identity checks.

> Incode, an identity verification startup based in San Francisco, says its face recognition checked more than 140 million identities in 2021, roughly four times as many as in the previous three years combined. The company’s customers include HSBC and Citigroup, and it recently raised $220 million in funding from investors including JP Morgan.

Caitlin Seeley George, a campaign director at nonprofit Fight for the Future, finds the spread of face recognition in airports and other areas of daily life concerning. “We need to ban all facial recognition, because the harms of this technology far outweigh any benefits,” she says.

George considers seemingly benign or careful uses of the technology dangerous because they help normalize collection of personal and biometric data that can be hacked or exploited. “The more places people see it, the more comfortable people feel,” she says. “When we do things for convenience we may not be thinking through all the repercussions.”

At the same time, George is optimistic about containing face recognition. She points to Facebook’s decision to shut its tagging system, the spread of local bans, and legislation introduced to both houses of Congress this year by a group of Democratic lawmakers and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) that would ban use of face recognition by federal agencies. Similar bills were introduced in 2020 but did not proceed to a vote."

 

BE PREPARED: Data-Wiping Cyber Attacks

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CISA urges US orgs to prepare for data-wiping cyberattacks

Lawrence Abrams

BleepingComputer |

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) urges U.S. organizations to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses against data-wiping attacks recently seen targeting Ukrainian government agencies and businesses.

As reported by BleepingComputer, Ukraine government agencies and corporate entities suffered coordinated cyberattacks last Friday where websites were defaced, and data-wiping malware was deployed to corrupt data and cause Windows devices to become inoperable.

Sources told cybersecurity journalist Kim Zetter that the attackers likely conducted the website defacements using the CVE-2021-32648 vulnerability in the OctoberCMS platform. The Ukraine Cyber Police say they are investigating the use of Log4j vulnerabilities and stolen credentials as another means of access to the networks and servers.

CNN also reports that a Ukrainian I.T. services company that helped develop many of these sites was also a victim, raising concerns about a supply-chain attack.

The website defacements and data-wiping malware attacks were originally thought to be different attacks. However, Ukraine issued a press release yesterday stating that entities were hit by both attacks, leading them to believe they were coordinated.

"Thus, it can be argued with high probability that the interface (replacement of displayed information) of websites of attacked government agencies and destruction of data by Viper are part of a cyber attack aimed at causing as much damage to the infrastructure of state electronic resource," the Ukraine government announced yesterday.

Ukraine blames these attacks on Russia, with some security experts attributing the attacks to Ghostwriter, a state-sponsored hacking group with ties to Belarus.

CISA urges US orgs to defend against similar attacks

CISA is now urging business leaders and U.S. organizations to take the following steps to prevent similar destructive attacks on their networks.

"This CISA Insights is intended to ensure that senior leaders at every organization in the United States are aware of critical cyber risks and take urgent, near-term steps to reduce the likelihood and impact of a potentially damaging compromise," warns a new CISA Insights bulletin.

"All organizations, regardless of sector or size, should immediately implement the steps outlined below."

While CISA's recommendations are in response to the recent cyberattacks on Ukraine, the following suggested steps are also good advice to prevent any network intrusion, including those leading to ransomware attacks. . .

Reduce the likelihood of a damaging cyber intrusion:

• Validate that all remote access to the organization’s network and privileged or administrative access requires multi-factor authentication.
• Ensure that software is up to date, prioritizing updates that address known exploited vulnerabilities identified by CISA.
• Confirm that the organization’s IT personnel have disabled all ports and protocols that are not essential for business purposes.
• If the organization is using cloud services, ensure that IT personnel have reviewed and implemented strong controls outlined in CISA's guidance.
• Sign up for CISA's free cyber hygiene services, including vulnerability scanning, to help reduce exposure to threats.

Take steps to quickly detect a potential intrusion:

• Ensure that cybersecurity/IT personnel are focused on identifying and quickly assessing any unexpected or unusual network behavior. Enable logging in order to better investigate issues or events.
• Confirm that the organization's entire network is protected by antivirus/antimalware software and that signatures in these tools are updated.
• If working with Ukrainian organizations, take extra care to monitor, inspect, and isolate traffic from those organizations; closely review access controls for that traffic
• Designate a crisis-response team with main points of contact for a suspected cybersecurity incident and roles/ responsibilities within the organization, including technology, communications, legal and business continuity.
• Assure availability of key personnel; identify means to provide surge support for responding to an incident.
• Conduct a tabletop exercise to ensure that all participants understand their roles during an incident.

Maximize the organization's resilience to a destructive cyber incident:

______________________________________________________________________"

READ MORE DETAILS/ Use this link: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisa-urges-us-orgs-to-prepare-for-data-wiping-cyberattacks/