HUD published a notice in the Federal Register on September 18 extending the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE) compliance date for programs administered by HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD). A final NSPIRE rule was published on May 11 (see Memo, 5/15) requiring CPD programs to comply by October 1, 2023. The Federal Register notice extends the compliance date to October 1, 2024. The affected CPD programs are the national Housing Trust Fund and the HOME Investment Partnerships, Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA), Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG), and Continuum of Care (CoC) programs.
NSPIRE aligns, consolidates, and improves regulations at 24 CFR part 5, the physical inspection regulations that apply to multiple HUD-assisted housing programs, replacing Uniform Physical Condition Standards (UPCS) and absorbing much of the Housing Quality Standards (HQS) regulations. NSPIRE physical inspections focus on three areas: the housing units where HUD-assisted residents live, elements of their buildings’ non-residential interiors, and the exteriors of buildings, ensuring that components of these three areas are “functionally adequate, operable, and free of health and safety hazards.”
The final NSPIRE rule made amendments to the HTF and HOME program regulations, requiring HTF grantees (states) and HOME participating jurisdictions (PJs) to develop property standards that apply to rental or homeownership projects involving rehabilitation, ongoing inspections of rental housing during their period of affordability, and acquisition of standard housing for homeownership. These property standards will also apply to housing occupied by households assisted with HOME tenant-based rental assistance.
The final NSPIRE rule also stated that HUD will publish lists of specific physical deficiencies in a Federal Registernotice indicating deficiencies that must be corrected before HTF or HOME projects are completed or during their affordability periods. These HTF and HOME specific deficiencies will form a subset of the much larger set of deficiencies presented in the NSPIRE Inspection Standards for public housing, Multifamily housing, and the Housing Choice Voucher program (see Memo, 6/26). To fully implement the final NSPIRE rule, HTF grantees and HOME PJs must develop rehabilitation and ongoing property standards as well as policies and procedures all of which incorporate the subset of specific HTF and HOME physical deficiencies. However, because HUD has not published such a notice yet, the agency is extending the compliance date for all CPD programs to October 1, 2024.
Read the September 18 Federal Register notice at: https://tinyurl.com/484ethpv
Read NLIHC’s “Summary of Key Provisions of the Final National Standards for Physical Inspection (NSPIRE) Regulations” at: https://bit.ly/3Oweh7H
Read the May 11 Federal Register version of the final NSPIRE rule at: https://bit.ly/3pvM9XM
Find an easier-to-read preview version of the final NSPIRE rule at: https://bit.ly/3pxumiX
View HUD’s NSPIRE website at: https://bit.ly/2V9qvV3
More information about HUD programs subject to the new NSPIRE rule is available in NLIHC’s 2023 Advocates’ Guide.