HUD Seeks Comments on Public Housing Admission Reform

HUD opened a final 30-day public-comment period concerning the paperwork requirements attached to public-housing admission and continued-occupancy policies.

Comments were due September 28, 2026.

The notice covers an existing information collection titled “Public Housing Reform; Change in Admission and Occupancy Requirements.” HUD is seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget to revise and continue that collection under OMB Control Number 2577-0230.

For public housing agencies, the notice provides an opportunity to comment on HUD’s estimates of the time and cost required to maintain these policies and make them available to residents, applicants, legal-aid organizations, HUD and other interested parties.

This Is an Information Collection - Not a New Admission Rule

The notice does not establish new eligibility standards or immediately change how PHAs must admit residents, calculate rent or administer continued occupancy.

Instead, it concerns the federal approval required for HUD to continue collecting information associated with existing PHA responsibilities.

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, federal agencies must obtain OMB approval before requiring regulated organizations or members of the public to provide certain types of information. Agencies must estimate the number of respondents, the frequency of responses and the time and financial burden created by the collection.

The current notice gave interested parties one final 30-day opportunity to evaluate and comment on HUD’s calculations.

What PHAs Must Maintain

PHAs must maintain written policies governing admission to and continued occupancy of public housing. Those policies must be made available to HUD and, upon request, to members of the public.

The documentation includes policies addressing subjects such as:

• Applicant and household eligibility;

• Local admission preferences;

• Rent calculations and rent options;

• Continued-occupancy requirements;

• Community-service and self-sufficiency requirements;

• Treatment of over-income households; and

• Other procedures used to administer public housing.

These records may be requested by residents, applicants, legal-aid organizations, HUD personnel and other interested parties. Requests may be made informally or through the Freedom of Information Act.

The policies must therefore be more than internal working documents. They need to be written, maintained, accessible and capable of explaining how the agency applies federal and local requirements.

Why QHWRA and HOTMA Are Part of the Collection

Many of the underlying responsibilities originated with the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998.

QHWRA made substantial changes to the Public Housing program, including changes involving rent choices, admission preferences, community-service obligations, self-sufficiency requirements and the calculation of household income and rent.

The information collection also reflects changes required by Section 103 of the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016.

HOTMA established requirements involving over-income public-housing families. For this purpose, an over-income family is generally a household whose annual income exceeds 120 percent of the applicable area median income for two consecutive years.

The legislation required PHAs to update their written policies to address these households. It also introduced annual reporting concerning the number of over-income households living in public housing and the number of families remaining on public-housing waiting lists.

HUD’s paperwork collection allows the department to account for the policies and reports associated with those requirements.

HUD Reduced Its Estimate to 2,667 Active PHAs

HUD revised its calculations to reflect a decrease in the number of active public housing agencies.

The previous information collection was based on 2,774 PHAs. HUD now estimates that 2,667 agencies remain active—a reduction of 107 agencies, or approximately 4 percent.

HUD explained that the number changes over time because PHAs may merge or end their public-housing programs through initiatives such as the Rental Assistance Demonstration.

The new burden calculation assumes that each of the 2,667 PHAs will provide one annual response involving its written admission and continued-occupancy policies.

HUD Estimates More Than 64,000 Annual Burden Hours

HUD estimates that each PHA will spend an average of 24 hours annually complying with the information collection.

Across 2,667 agencies, that produces an estimated annual burden of 64,008 hours.

Using an estimated labor cost of $28.65 per hour, HUD calculates a total annual compliance cost of approximately $1.83 million.

The agency’s estimates are:

• Respondents: 2,667 PHAs;

• Responses per respondent: One annually;

• Total annual responses: 2,667;

• Estimated time per response: 24 hours;

• Total annual burden: 64,008 hours;

• Estimated hourly cost: $28.65; and

• Estimated annual cost: $1,833,829.

These figures represent HUD’s estimated paperwork burden. They do not establish a new fee or require PHAs to pay $1.83 million directly to the federal government.

What HUD Wants Commenters to Address

HUD is requesting feedback in four principal areas.

First, commenters could address whether the information collection is necessary for HUD to perform its responsibilities and whether the collected information has practical value.

Second, parties could evaluate the accuracy of HUD’s estimates, including the projected number of respondents, hours required and associated labor cost.

Third, commenters could recommend ways to improve the quality, usefulness or clarity of the information HUD collects.

Finally, HUD sought ideas for reducing the compliance burden, including the use of automated systems, digital records and electronic submission methods.

PHAs that believed maintaining and producing these policies requires substantially more - or less - than 24 hours annually could use the comment period to provide supporting information.

How to Submit Comments

Comments and recommendations were to be submitted through the federal government’s Reginfo.gov portal by September 28, 2026.

Commenters were to open the section titled “Currently Under 30-Day Review—Open for Public Comments” and search for the information collection using its title or OMB approval number.

The relevant identifying information is:

• Information collection: Public Housing Reform; Change in Admission and Occupancy Requirements;

• OMB approval number: 2577-0230;

• HUD docket: FR-7107-N-21; and

• Federal Register document: 2026-17558.

The current review follows an earlier 60-day comment period announced by HUD on February 18, 2026.

What PHAs Should Review Now

The notice gives PHAs an opportunity to examine both their internal compliance and HUD’s burden assumptions.

Agencies should confirm that their admission and continued-occupancy policy is current, written and available through a clearly defined public-request process.

PHAs should also verify that the policy accurately addresses eligibility, local preferences, rent determinations, community-service requirements and the treatment of over-income households.

Agencies subject to HOTMA-related reporting should confirm that they can identify and report over-income households and waiting-list totals accurately.

Finally, PHAs should compare their actual administrative burden with HUD’s 24-hour estimate. Agencies that submit comments should provide specific examples, data and recommended improvements rather than a general statement that the burden is too high.

The Bottom Line

HUD is not introducing a new public-housing admission rule through this notice. It is renewing and revising the federal information collection associated with admission and continued-occupancy policies already required of PHAs.

The most important date was September 28, 2026. PHAs, residents, legal-aid organizations and other interested parties had until that date to comment on whether the collection remains useful, whether HUD’s burden estimates are accurate and whether technology or other changes could make compliance more efficient.