Affordable Housing Connections Updates
Join the AHC Board of Directors!
Are you committed to affordable housing and looking for an opportunity to get involved? Apply to join the Affordable Housing Connections (AHC) Board of Directors. AHC is a 501c(3) non-profit organization and is Minnesota’s trusted expert on affordable housing compliance and related industry education. AHC has an Executive Director and 12 full-time employees. The Board of Directors serves as a policy board, and board members are volunteers. An initial term is three years, with the possibility to serve an additional 3-year term. As part of this commitment, individual board members are expected to attend meetings four times each year and support...
2025 COLA Increase
Social Security Announces 2.5 Percent Benefit Increase for 2025 Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for more than 72.5 million Americans will increase 2.5% in 2025. The 2.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits payable to Social Security beneficiaries in January 2025. Increased payments to SSI beneficiaries will begin on December 31, 2024. On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $50 per month. Read more on the Social Security Administration website.
AHC is hiring a Compliance Program Coordinator
Affordable Housing Connections (AHC) is growing and hiring. Our Mission is to support local governments to implement their housing assistance plans and to protect public and private investment in projects that further affordable housing strategies and priorities. We are looking for a person to fill the position of Compliance Program Coordinator. This person will join a team of other experienced professionals to provide program and administrative support to a 12-person office team. AHC is a 501c3 nonprofit organization incorporated in 1989. This position is responsible for contract implementation of an assigned portfolio of projects assisted with federal program funding (including...
2025 HUD Passbook Rate
The 2025 HUD Passbook Savings Rate will be 0.45%, effective January 1, 2025. On August 2, 2023, HUD posted the Inflation-Adjusted Values and Passbook Saving Rate for 2025. See Annual Inflationary Adjustments and Passbook Rate for more information.. Tenant certifications effective January 1, 2025, or later must use the new passbook rate. See the 12-2023 CHARTConnect User Guide, page 40, for instructions on where in your working copy of the CHARTConnect excel workbook to enter the effective date and new passbook rate. Should you need any assistance please contact your lead contact at AHC. If you are using a software...
Introducing the Three-Part Tax Credit Compliance Specialist (TCCS) Course for 2024
Amongst many industries, the housing industry has seen many challenges over the last few years that brought a new level of difficulty to affordable housing management. Staff turnover is at an all-time high, making training a critical need. Now that we have settled into a post-Covid world, Affordable Housing Connections Education Leadership Center (AHC ELC) is excited to announce that we will be offering our Tax Credit Compliance Specialist (TCCS) course again. This certification has been developed to assist management professionals in their efforts to comply with the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. The course content is regularly...
Celebrating Innovative and Pioneering Projects at the AHC Annual Conference
Affordable Housing Connections welcomed project owners, compliance managers, senior-level site and property staff, as well as Suballocator and PJ staff to Wilder Center on December 7th, 2023. James Haggar, M State Partners, Libby Murphy, Minnesota Housing Partnership, Jennifer Bergman, Minnesota Housing, Tara Beard, City of Saint Paul, and Amy Geisler, City of Minneapolis spoke about the billions for housing coming from recent legislation. Roundtable discussions about struggles and successes connected attendees, who found common ground and commiseration. Renee Dickinson, Compliance Manager – Multifamily, Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, Jennifer Arens and Heather Gondreau, Affordable Housing Connections previewed compliance in 2024. The...
2024 COLA Increase and HUD Passbook
Social Security Announces 3.2 % Benefit Increase for 2024 Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for more than 70 million Americans will increase 3.2% in 2024. The 3.2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits payable to Social Security beneficiaries in January 2024. Increased payments to SSI beneficiaries will begin on December 29, 2023. On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by more than $50 per month. The 2024 passbook savings rate will be 0.4 % and will change every year. On October 9, 2023 HUD posted Annual Inflationary Adjustments and Passbook Rate for 2024....
HOME 2023 Income and Rent Limits
The recently published 2023 HOME Program income and rent limits for the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA and Counties in the Northeast MN HOME Consortium are effective on June 15, 2023. These and limits for other local and national jurisdictions are available on the HUD Exchange: 2023 HOME Income Limits 2023 HOME Rent Limits The 30% limits are provided for the HOME Program because the Consolidated Plan requires information on extremely low-income families. The 60% limits are provided because each PJ must invest HOME funds made available during a fiscal year so that not less than 90% of families receiving HOME...
The 2023 Monitoring Season has Begun
The due date for the Annual Owner’s Certification and its supporting documents (i.e., PY2022 CHARTs) has passed, and hopefully, you submitted everything on time. If so, thank you for your timely submission – we appreciate it! The Affordable Housing Connections (AHC) compliance team member who leads your management portfolio should have emailed you the list of your projects due for a site visit this year. As a reminder, all projects are subject to annual Desk Audit reviews, but only some projects will also have a site visit (file review and physical inspection). We have already mapped out our PY22 review...
April is National Fair Housing Month!
This year is the 55th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Federal Fair Housing Act; a monumental act passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11th, 1968. This law prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on protected classes, such as race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), familial status, and disability. Across America in 2021, 31,216 fair housing complaints were filed with the National Fair Housing Alliance. Fairly accessing housing is a challenge in many communities, as discrimination and racial...