HUD No.10-022 Donna White (202) 708-0685

FOR RELEASE Friday January 29, 2010

WASHINGTON - U.S. Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary Sandra B. Henriquez today announced the three public housing agencies that will participate in HUD's Moving To Work Program (MTW). MTW allows housing agencies to design and test innovative housing strategies that assist lower income families living in public housing or who are assisted through HUD's Housing Choice Voucher Program.

Public housing authorities in Champaign County, Illinois; Orlando, Florida; and Tacoma, Washington will join 30 other agencies across the U.S. These three housing authorities were selected from among eight agencies that applied for MTW designation late last year and will reap the benefits this designation until 2018 (see attached summaries).

"The agencies we selected today clearly demonstrated their ability to create innovative approaches to housing and to form private partnerships that can really build on public dollars," said Henriquez, who leads HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing. "HUD supports our housing partners to think outside of the box to improve our federal programs to better assist low-income families."

The MTW program was created in 1996 as a demonstration or "test project" to give housing authorities the opportunity to design and test innovative, locally developed housing and self-sufficiency strategies for low income families participating in HUD's public housing and Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) programs. HUD exempts these agencies from certain rules and permits them to combine their multiple sources of HUD funding into a single agency-wide funding source. MTW agencies also get considerable flexibility in determining how to use their HUD funding. These agencies are, however, required to serve substantially the same number and type of households as they would without MTW designation. The program aims to accomplish three goals:

• Reduce costs and achieve greater cost effectiveness in federal expenditures;
  
  
• Give incentives to families with children where the head of household is working, is seeking work, or is preparing for work by participating in job training, educational programs, or programs that assist people to obtain employment and become economically self-sufficient; and
  
  
• Increase housing choices for low-income families.
  

As part of HUD's 2009 budget appropriation, Congress directed HUD to add three agencies that met certain criteria to the program. In August 2009, HUD invited eligible public housing agencies to apply for admission to the MTW program. The agencies had to be: high performing under HUD's Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS); a recipient of a HUD HOPE VI Revitalization grant; and operate no more 5,000 aggregate housing vouchers and public housing units. HUD identified 17 potential applicants and received applications from eight housing authorities. The agencies selected received the highest scores after a ranking and rating system.