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Legislative Advocacy: Legal Momentum Advocacy to HUD

Legal Momentum and other advocates have been working to ensure that Congress and the Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") understand the public housing issues faced by victims of abuse, and that HUD regulations and guidelines for public housing authorities ("PHAs") incorporate decision-making practices that recognize the particular difficulties faced by abuse victims.

• House Rep. 107-272, the conference report to the FY 2002 Appropriations for the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing & Urban Development ("HUD"), and Independent Agencies acknowledged the housing discrimination problem as Congress directed to HUD to "develop plans to protect victims of domestic violence from being discriminated against in receiving or maintaining public housing because of their victimization."
• On February 21, 2002, Legal Momentum, ACLU and six other organizations wrote a letter (pdf) to HUD detailing the housing issues that victims of domestic violence face.
• Assistant HUD Secretary Michael Lui wrote to the directors of public housing regarding HUD's view of the Rucker decision, indicating that PHAs should balance the statutory lease provision that allows PHAs to evict entire households for drug-related or criminal activity against various factors which take into account the interest of innocent individuals who share a household with the wrongdoer.
• On September 16, 2002 Legal Momentum and other organizations sent a public comment (pdf) to HUD supporting the inclusion of a section devoted to domestic violence victims in HUD's housing policy manual, which applies to all public housing authorities across the country.
• The HUD Public Housing Occupancy Guidebook, released in June 2003, incorporated some of the recommendations called for in the above public comments. Chapter 19, pages 216-221, deals exclusively with domestic violence issues.
• The National Housing Law Project's Housing Law Bulletin contains an article (pdf) focusing on housing issues faced by domestic violence victims in public housing.
• HUD Secretary Mel Martinez instructed public housing authorities in this April 2002 memo in response to the Rucker decision that "eviction should be the last option explored" in cases where a household member is engaged in drug-related activities.