[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 38 (Wednesday, February 26, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10823-10825]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-04202]


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DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

[Docket No. FR-5763-N-02]


Privacy Act; Notification of a New Privacy Act System of Records, 
Homeless Families Impact Study Data Files

AGENCY: Office of the Chief Information Officer, HUD.

ACTION: Notice of Proposed Revision of an Existing System of Records.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 
U.S.C. 552a), the Department of Housing and Urban Development, gives 
notice of a proposed revision of an existing Privacy Act system of 
records. The system of records is being updated to allow the Department 
to conduct a follow-up evaluation on the participants of the Homeless 
Families Impact Study. Additionally, the Department proposes to expand 
the data collected under the previous study to capture additional data 
to determine the effects that housing and service interventions has had 
on participating children. Refer to the ``Categories of Records'' 
caption to identify new record types. The overall goal of this study is 
to determine which intervention works best to promote housing 
stability, family preservation, and family well-being, and self-
sufficiency for homeless families. This notice supersedes the 
previously published notice (October 4, 2010, 75 FR 24750).

Comments Due Date:  March 28, 2014.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding 
this notice to the Rules Docket Clerk, Office of General Counsel, 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., 
Room 10276, Washington, DC 20410-0500. Communications should refer to 
the above docket number and title. A copy of each communication 
submitted will be available for public inspection and copying between 
8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. weekdays at the above address.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Donna Robinson-Staton, Departmental 
Privacy Act Officer, 451 Seventh Street SW., Room 2256, Washington, DC 
20410, Telephone Number (202) 402-8047. (This is not a toll-free 
number.) A telecommunication device for hearing-and speech-impaired 
individuals (TTY) is available at (800) 877-8339 (Federal Information 
Relay Service).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Pursuant to the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 
U.S.C. 552a), as amended notice is given that HUD proposes to establish 
a revised system of records as identified as Homeless Families Impact 
Study Data Files.
    Title 5 U.S.C. 552a(e)(4) and (11) provide that the public be 
afforded a 30-day period in which to comment on the new system of 
records.
    The revised system report was submitted to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB), the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, and the 
House Committee on Government Reform pursuant to paragraph 4c of 
Appendix 1 to OMB Circular No. A-130, ``Federal Responsibilities for 
Maintaining Records About Individuals,'' July 25, 1994 (59 FR 37914).

    Authority:  5 U.S.C. 552a 88 Stat. 1896; 42 U.S.C. 3535(d).

    Dated: February 12, 2014.
Kevin R. Cooke, Jr.,
Acting Chief Information Officer.
PD&R/RRE.03

System name:
    Homeless Families Impact Study Data Files.

System location:
    Homeless Families Impact Study Data Files are to be located at Abt 
Associates Inc., 55 Wheeler Street, Cambridge, MA; Abt Associates Inc., 
4550 Montgomery Avenue, Bethesda, MD; and the AT&T Datacenter, 15 
Enterprise Ave, Secaucus, NJ 07094. U.S. Department of Housing and 
Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW., Washington, DC 20410.

Categories of individuals covered by the system:
    Families enrolled in Homeless Families Impact Study (also known as 
the Family Options Study).

[[Page 10824]]

Categories of records in the system:
    Name; Social Security Number; study identifier; birth date; contact 
information (home address, telephone numbers, email address); 
demographic characteristics of the family head (e.g., race/ethnicity, 
gender, marital status); number of children and other adults in the 
household (a roster of adults and children with the family head at 
baseline and spouse/partner and children not with the family head at 
baseline, and characteristics of these family members); income sources 
and total family income; employment and earnings for the family head; 
health (behavioral health and physical health of the family head); 
substance use; foster care history for the family head; exposure to 
domestic violence; housing status prior to shelter entry; homelessness 
history; barriers to housing; homeless program participation; contact 
information for family and friends; and assigned study intervention, 
and study involvement information. The revised system, to be effective 
as of March 2014, will expand the categories of records to include: 
instances of family separation and reunification; foster care 
placements of children during the follow-up period; food insecurity; 
economic well-being (economic stressors and financial stability); 
parenting practices; family routines; home environment; program service 
participation and experiences; child well-being (including: child 
behavioral health, child physical health, school engagement, child 
development, child executive functioning, risky behaviors of older 
youth, and child academic performance).

Authority for maintenance of the system:
    Sec. 501, 502, Housing and Urban Development Act of 1970 (Pub.L. 
91-609), 12 U.S.C. 1701z-1, 1701z-2.

Purpose:
    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is 
undertaking an evaluation of the Impacts of Housing and Services 
Interventions for Homeless Families, also known as the Family Options 
Study, to provide research evidence to help federal policymakers, 
community planners, and local practitioners make sound decisions about 
the best ways to address homelessness among families. This study will 
compare four combinations of housing and service interventions for 
homeless families in a rigorous, multi-site experiment, to determine 
what interventions work best to promote family stability and well-being 
and, within the limits of statistical power, what sorts of families 
benefit most from each intervention. The interventions are: (1) 
Permanent housing subsidy without services (Subsidy Only); (2) 
Community-Based Rapid Re-housing (CBRR), consisting of temporary 
housing subsidy provided in conventional housing with limited 
supportive services; (3) temporary housing subsidy provided in 
facility-based housing with intensive services but no guarantee of a 
permanent subsidy (Project-Based Transitional Housing-PBTH); and (4) 
shelter, with whatever services the shelter ordinarily provides to its 
residents and any other assistance available in the community (Usual 
Care). The information collected is necessary to identify and track the 
participating families over the course of the study and determine the 
effectiveness of the interventions. The random assignment data file 
within this system will include personal identifiers that can be used 
to locate records to update families' whereabouts or to verify if a 
family has already been enrolled in the study. After data collection is 
complete, researchers will use a dataset that is stripped of 
identifying information for all analyses. Analysis records will be 
identified with a randomly generated study identification number that 
is unrelated to personal information such as SSN, DOB, or name. The 
study identifier can be linked to the personal identifying information 
only by a small number of central research staff at Abt Associates. At 
the end of the 36-month follow-up, HUD staff will be provided with the 
identifiers only for families who gave consent to participate in the 
36-month follow-up. Thus, authorized HUD research staff would also be 
able to link the study identifier to personal identifying information.

Routine uses of records maintained in the system, including categories 
of users and the purposes of such uses:
     To authorized Abt SRBI researchers to match primary study 
data with other datasets for tracking (e.g., matching with change of 
address databases) to track and locate families throughout the study 
and to manage the data collection process.
     To authorized Abt researchers to: (1) Access and link data 
from one phase of data collection to another or to match primary study 
data with other datasets for data collection purposes (e.g., matching 
with HUD's public housing dataset to measure housing receipt); (2) 
perform statistical Analysis and to develop findings for this research 
study; (3) and Create both a public use file of non-identifiable data 
and a more-detailed restricted access file of non-identifiable data for 
disclosure to authorized researchers for other purposes.
     To other authorized HUD researchers that HUD funds to 
further study the impacts of the housing and services interventions 
that are the focus of this study (community based rapid rehousing, 
project-based transitional housing, permanent subsidy and usual care) 
and additional ways each can be used to address homelessness.

Policies and practices for storing, retrieving, accessing, retaining, 
and disposing of records in the system:
Storage:
    Electronic Records: Backup media is stored in a commercial locked 
facility and the media is transported using locked, tracked containers. 
Unencrypted data will never be stored on a laptop or on a movable media 
such as CDs, diskettes, or USB flash drives. Paper Records: All hard 
copy forms with personal identifying data (the participant agreement/
informed consent form) will be stored securely in a locked cabinet that 
can only be accessed by authorized individuals working on the data. The 
locked cabinet will be stored in a locked office in a limited-access 
building. While in the field, paper records will be stored securely 
until they are processed and securely sent to Abt Associates via 
commercial mail carrier.

Retrievability:
    Records within the random assignment data file can be retrieved by 
name, social security number, study identification number, birthdate, 
or spouse name.

Safeguards:
    The following safeguards shall be used to secure data in storage, 
retrieval, during access, and disposal. For Electronic Records: All 
personal data will be maintained on a secure workstation or server that 
is protected by a firewall and complex passwords in a directory that 
can only be accessed by the network administrators and the analysts 
actively working on the data; access rights to the data are granted to 
limited researchers on a need-to-know basis, and the level of access 
provided to each researcher is based on the minimal level required that 
individual to fulfill his research role; all systems used to process or 
store data have Federal security controls applied to them; the data 
will be backed up on a regular basis to safeguard against system 
failures or disasters; and, unencrypted data will never be stored on a 
laptop or on a movable media such as CDs,

[[Page 10825]]

diskettes, or USB flash drives. For Paper Records: The site 
interviewers will securely store any hard copy forms with personal 
identifiers until they are shipped to Abt Associates via commercial 
mail services; all hard copy forms with personal identifying data (the 
participant agreement/informed consent form) will be stored securely in 
a locked cabinet that can only be accessed by authorized individuals 
working on the data. The locked cabinet will be stored in a locked 
office in a limited-access building. Additionally, permissions will be 
defined for each authorized user based on the user's role on the 
project. For example, the local site interviewer will be able to review 
data for study participants only for his or her own specific site. 
Study data will be aggregated or de-identified at the highest level 
possible for each required, authorized use. Abt Associates and HUD will 
not use or disclose the data for any purposes other than for the ``The 
Impacts of Housing and Services Interventions for Homeless Families'' 
study (``Family Options Study'') or other purposes described above and 
specified in the consent with participating families. Abt Associates, 
HUD, and other authorized users will not disclose the data to 
additional parties without the written authority of the participating 
families or providing organizations, except where required by law.

Retention and disposal:
    The retention and disposal procedures are in keeping with HUD's 
records management policies as described in 44 U.S.C. 3101 and 44 
U.S.C. 3303. All PII associated with the project will be destroyed by 
Abt, Abt SRBI and HUD or otherwise rendered irrecoverable per NIST SP 
800-88 ``Guidelines for Media Sanitization'' (September 2006). The data 
may remain on backup media for a longer period of time, but will be 
similarly permanently destroyed at the end of the three-year retention 
period required in the contract.

System manager(s) and address:
    Carol Star, Director of the Program Evaluation Division, Office of 
Policy Development and Research, Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 20410, Telephone 
Number (202) 402-6139.

Notification and Record Access Procedure:
    For information, assistance, or inquiry about existence or records, 
contact Donna Robinson-Stanton, Chief Privacy Officer, Department of 
Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC, 
in accordance with the procedures in 24 CFR part 16. The Department's 
rules for providing access to records to the individual concerned 
appear in 24 CFR parts 16. If additional information or assistance is 
required, contact the Privacy Act Officer at the appropriate location. 
The data collected for inclusion in this system of records is also 
protected by a federal Certificate of Confidentiality issued by the 
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This 
certificate protects the data from being released under Freedom of 
Information Act requests and subpoena.

Contesting record procedures:
    The Department's rules for contesting the contents of records and 
appealing initial denials, by the individual concerned, appear in 24 
CFR part 16. If additional information or assistance is needed, it may 
be obtained by contacting:
    (i) In relation to contesting contents of records, the Departmental 
Privacy Act, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh 
Street SW., Room 2256, Washington, DC 20410, or
    (ii) In relation to appeals of initial denials, the HUD 
Departmental Privacy Appeals Officers, Office of General Counsel, 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., 
Washington, DC 20410.

Record source categories:
    Original data collected directly from participating families, third 
party data for tracking purposes (e.g. National Change of Address 
database, credit bureaus), administrative data on HUD's public housing 
programs, and non-HUD administrative data such as the Adoption and 
Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data and individual-
level data on earnings, wages and the receipt of unemployment 
insurance.

Exemption from certain of provision of the Act:
    None.

[FR Doc. 2014-04202 Filed 2-25-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4210-67-P