A little more on HUD and local PHAs

The Mobile Register's story on HUD relief today is locally focused but has a few details that might be helpful to folks elsewhere.

We already knew that HUD's instructions to hurricane victims have been to contact the local housing authority wherever they find themselves, and that Housing Notice 04-22 allows local housing authorities to place disaster victims at the tops of waiting lists (see below), but the Register also says this:

The federal agency will also try to direct [displaced tenants] to three housing authorities that are closest to where they are temporarily sheltered. HUD has also set up a hotline for public housing authorities to verify that person previously lived in public housing. The agency has established its Real Estate Assessment Center to verify a family's participation in public housing prior to the storm's arrival. HUD will continue to provide Section 8 payments, without recipients having to re-apply, and will allow a housing authority to prioritize evacuees' admissions to public housing, officials said.

The Register says the hurricane ironically "hit at a time when the Mobile authority is in the middle of a major renovation, demolition and revitalization effort," so apparently local officials have fewer units to offer.