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In July 2013, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued Notice H 2013-21 “Implementation and approval of owner-adopted admissions preferences for individuals or families experiencing homelessness.” HUD has now created a step-by-step toolkit to facilitate community involvement and successful implementation of the homeless preference. The toolkit draws on the experiences of 10 communities that HUD funded to pilot its 2012 initiative called Dedicating Opportunities to End Homelessness (DOEH) – part of HUD’s Opening Doors initiative. Opening Doors relies upon building and maintaining a community-wide effort to appropriately address and end homelessness. Owners and their management companies will work with local partners to both implement their property’s homeless preference and contribute towards ending homelessness in their communities. Under contract with HUD, TAC provides direct technical assistance to 16 communities that are currently promoting the homeless preference in their local HUD-assisted multifamily housing portfolios. These local efforts are using a strategic partnership approach to create new pathways out of homelessness and into long term affordable permanent housing for many households.

 The guide provides detailed discussion and direction through the following parts of an effective process:

• Creating a multifamily planning and implementation team
• Examining and understanding the community’s needs and available multifamily housing resources
• Identifying and engaging service providers 
• Engaging multifamily property owners
• Formalizing agreements between service providers and owners
• Supporting owners' implementation of the homeless preference
• Refining the process

View the Toolkit