From the CEO's Desk: HUD Restarting REAC Inspection Cycles

As a HUD Affordable Housing property owner, I feel it is important for the health and safety of our tenants that our properties are maintained in excellent condition. HUD has traditionally sought to monitor the conditions of the properties receiving their subsidies through the REAC program of periodic building-wide inspections, which assign scores from 0-100 to each property.

HUD is now restarting their REAC inspection cycles as of June 1 now that the states are re-opening from the COVID pandemic. HUD is also commencing a new program to help improve the effectiveness of their REAC inspections. Recently, the REAC inspections became bogged down in inconsistent and subjective scoring by the various REAC inspectors.

This new program, called NSPIRE (National Standards for Physical Inspection of Real Estate), seeks to improve the entire process by allowing property owners with high scores to demonstrate to HUD the property conditions and areas that are most important to maintaining the health and safety of the residents. HUD is, in turn, supposed to use this information to redesign the scope and scoring of its REAC inspections.

The anticipated result is a REAC inspection that effectively and efficiently drives building owners to maintain the areas and conditions in their properties that have the most effect on the lives of their tenants. Higher scores will then more directly contribute to better living conditions for tenants.

We remain committed to improving our tenants’ lives by providing safe, quality homes and responsive service and look forward to participating in this new program.

- Scott Jaffee