New guidance and waivers from HUD

HUD has been showing an excess of modesty this week, burying terribly useful items deep down in its Web page structure. Just now the only clue to the existence of new information was a slight reorganization of the links on HUD's Katrina page. Turns out they've produced two new useful items:

1) HUD's disaster policy for public housing authorities has been posted for days and days on this page, but at the foot of it there's now a link to a page with further guidance from HUD Public and Indian Housing, and there we find a meaty ten-page housing FAQ addressing questions about public housing, Section 8 vouchers, and to some extent other subsidized housing questions.

2) Community Planning and Development now has five waivers posted. We reported on three of these over the weekend: the waiver of public comment periods on changes to CDBG consolidated plans; the waiver of the 15% CDBG public service expenditure cap; and the Sep. 9 combined guidance/waiver document on use of HOME funds. However, now there are two more:

a) An apparently new but undated waiver on the use of Emergency Shelter Grant funds for disaster victims, and

b) An apparently new, additional HOME waiver document, also undated, suspending HOME statutory requirements under Sec. 290 of the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990, as amended, and waiving HOME regulatory requirements under 24 CFR 5.110, in "participating jurisdictions in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi counties."

[UPDATE: Judging by some of the past storm-related regulatory waivers on pages 2, 3, and 7 of this document, these Sec. 290 waivers are pretty routine in disasters.]