Item 05 - First Amendment to the Memorandum of Agreement for Inter-Jurisdictional Mobility

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First Amendment to the Memorandum of Agreement for Inter-Jurisdictional Mobility May 4, 2021 Page 2 6 8 3 OCHA, AHA, and GGHA have had a Memorandum of Agreement in place for over ten years, and most recently renewed their existing five-year agreement in June 2017. SAHA has been a party to the MOA since then. This regional agreement between the four housing authorities in Orange County has proven to be successful and cost effective as a best practice recognized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It has even been replicated in the County of Los Angeles and staff has presented on it to housing authorities in Phoenix, Arizona. The MOA simplifies, facilitates, and improves inter-jurisdictional administration of the Housing Choice Voucher Program in Orange County by eliminating often cumbersome procedures that would otherwise be necessary under portability requirements. Under the MOA, when a family exercises their right to port- out, SAHA only needs to request an inspection of the assisted-unit requested by the family from the PHA who has jurisdiction over the geographic location of the unit, but the family’s housing assistance continues to be administered by SAHA. The MOA reduces the time it takes for families to move between housing authority jurisdictions in Orange County and allow SAHA, OCHA, and AHA to more efficiently administer our housing assistance. In addition to the administrative benefits being a part of this regional agreement, SAHA also retains 100 percent of the administrative fee for a family’s voucher outside of our jurisdiction in lieu of paying 80 percent of the Administrative Fee to a receiving PHA that is billing SAHA for the administration of the family’s voucher. SAHA currently disburses over $697,000 per year in Administrative Fees for port-out vouchers being administered by OCHA, AHA, GGHA and other housing authorities nationwide, with the majority in Orange County. If our Housing Authority were to ever decide not to be a party to this regional agreement, voucher assisted-families will still exercise their right to portability under the federal regulations for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and these costs would increase. In order to update the roles and responsibilities of the issuing PHA and the host PHA when using Project Based Vouchers (PBV) for HCV recipients and/or for Special Purpose Voucher (SPV) recipients in the host PHA’s jurisdiction, which may have different requirements than the HCV Program, SAHA is seeking approval to execute a First Amendment to the MOA (Exhibit 2). This First Amendment to the MOA is intended to update the responsibilities of the PHAs for inter-jurisdictional administration of the Housing Choice Voucher Program in Orange County by continuing to streamline procedures that would otherwise be necessary under program requirements. The First Amendment will improve coordination for the following: 1) environmental reviews and subsidy layering reviews when project-based vouchers are allocated by OCHA in the jurisdiction of the AHA, SAHA, or GGHA; 2) the inspection process for project-based vouchers in a host PHA’s jurisdiction; and 3) establishing the initial rent and tenant selection process. The First Amendment to the MOA will improve upon the existing MOA between the four housing authorities. It is important to note that while the MOA is officially between OCHA, AHA, SAHA and the GGHA, the Garden Grove Housing Authority is not willing to allow mobility between