[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 133 (Thursday, July 13, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 44813-44815]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-14634]



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DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

[Docket No. FR-6381-N-01]


Improving Access to Public Benefit Programs; Request for Comment

AGENCY: Office of Policy Development and Research, Department of 
Housing and Urban Development, HUD.

ACTION: Request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Housing and Urban Development is seeking 
comments from the public regarding the burden faced when applying for 
or maintaining eligibility for HUD's housing programs. HUD recognizes 
that these administrative hurdles and paperwork burdens 
disproportionately fall on the most vulnerable populations and prevent 
individuals and entities from accessing benefits for which they are 
legally eligible. Public comment submitted in response to this request 
for comment will assist HUD in better understanding, identifying, and 
reducing HUD's public program administrative burden and ultimately 
further its mission to pursue transformative housing and community-
building policies and programs.

DATES: Comment Due Date: August 14, 2023.

ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments responsive 
to this request for comment. There are three methods for submitting 
public comments. All submissions must refer to the above docket number 
and title.
    1. Electronic Submission of Comments. Comments may be submitted 
electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 
www.regulations.gov. HUD strongly encourages commenters to submit 
comments electronically through www.regulations.gov. Electronic 
submission of comments allows the commenter maximum time to prepare and 
submit a comment, ensures timely receipt by HUD, and enables HUD to 
make comments immediately available to the public. Comments submitted 
electronically through www.regulations.gov can be viewed by other 
commenters and interested members of the public. Commenters should 
follow the instructions provided on that website to submit comments 
electronically.
    2. Submission of Comments by Mail. Comments may be submitted by 
mail to the Regulations Division, Office of General Counsel, Department 
of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW, Room 10276, 
Washington, DC 20410-0500.
    3. Submission of Comments by Electronic Mail. Comments may be 
submitted by electronic mail to the Regulations Division, Office of 
General Counsel, Department of Housing and Urban Development at 
[email protected].
    Note: To receive consideration as a public comment, comments must 
be submitted through one of the three methods specified above.
    Public Inspection of Public Comments. Copies of all comments 
submitted will be available for inspection and downloading at 
www.regulations.gov. HUD will also make all properly submitted comments 
and communications available for public inspection and copying during 
regular business hours at the above address. Due to security measures 
at the HUD Headquarters building, you must schedule an appointment in 
advance to review the public comments by calling the Regulations 
Division at 202-708-3055 (this is not a toll-free number). HUD welcomes 
and is prepared to receive calls from individuals who are deaf or hard 
of hearing, as well as individuals with speech or communication 
disabilities. To learn more about how to make an accessible telephone 
call, please visit https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/telecommunications-relay-service-trs. Copies of all comments submitted 
are available for inspection and downloading at www.regulations.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Todd Richardson, General Deputy 
Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and Research, 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW, Room 
8100, Washington, DC 20410, telephone 202-402-5706 (this is not a toll-
free number). HUD welcomes and is prepared to receive calls from 
individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, as well as individuals 
with speech or communication disabilities. To learn more about how to 
make an accessible telephone call, please visit https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/telecommunications-relay-service-trs.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Background

    Applying for and maintaining eligibility for public benefits and 
services, including housing programs, often requires completing and 
submitting a variety of forms. HUD and its housing partners that 
administer its programs (including Public Housing Authorities, State 
and local governments, non-profit recipients of CDBG programs, 
Multifamily Housing owners, and FHA lenders) use the information 
collected by these forms to determine whether applicants are eligible 
or if current recipients continue to be eligible. These forms and other 
methods of information collections may create burdens that 
disproportionately fall on the most vulnerable populations and prevent 
individuals and entities from accessing services for which they are 
legally eligible. These burdens include the expenditure of time, 
effort, or financial resources to generate, maintain, or provide 
information to HUD or its housing partners. For example, individuals 
may be required to provide a list of family members, the family's total 
annual family income, the assets available to each family member in the 
household, and the value of such assets in order to access public 
housing. Individuals applying for or maintaining eligibility for public 
benefits or services may also face burdens such as time spent gathering 
records and documentation needed to prove eligibility, travel time 
associated with developing and submitting the collection, or even time 
waiting to speak with agency personnel.
    Consistent with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA),\1\ 
agencies must ensure that both the quantitative burden estimates and 
the narrative description supporting its information collection 
requests reflect the beginning-to-end experience of completing the 
information collection activity. Specifically, the burden faced by 
individuals applying for and maintaining eligibility for public 
benefits should also include:
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    \1\ Public Law 104-13 (1995) (codified at 44 U.S.C. 3501-3520).
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    --Information and learning costs, which refer to the time, effort, 
money, and other resources that individuals need to expend to learn 
about the existence of a public service or benefit, rules governing 
their eligibility and application, certification, benefits maintenance, 
and post-award reporting or recertification processes.
    --Compliance costs, which refer to the time, effort, money, and 
other resources that individuals need to expend to follow through with 
program application, certification, or recertification, including 
filling out necessary paperwork, waiting for correspondence from 
program agencies, planning for in-person meetings, and producing 
documentation to confirm their eligibility (for instance, records of 
household composition, income, or assets).

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    --Psychological costs, which refer to the cognitive load, 
discomfort, stress, anxiety, distrust, or loss of autonomy or dignity 
that individuals may experience as a result of attempting to access a 
public benefit or service.
    --Redemption costs, which refer to the time, effort, money, and 
other resources that individuals need to expend to use public benefits 
or services where beneficiaries or participants must navigate third-
party agents or vendors.
    Every step in applying for or maintaining eligibility for public 
benefits represents a burden that could result in individuals or 
entities justifiably becoming too discouraged to complete the process 
and thus not receiving public benefits for which they are legally 
eligible.

II. Improving Access to Public Benefits Programs Through the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (OMB M-22-10)

    On April 13, 2022, OMB issued a memorandum entitled, ``Improving 
Access to Public Benefits Programs Through the Paperwork Reduction 
Act'' (OMB M-22-10),\2\ to assist Federal agencies to, among other 
things, reduce administrative burdens on individuals when accessing 
public benefits programs.\3\ OMB M-22-10 discusses how the process of 
understanding, completing, and submitting forms associated with public 
benefits can impose burdens on potential beneficiaries ``that could 
result in individuals or entities justifiably becoming too discouraged 
to complete the process and thus not receiving public benefits for 
which they are legally eligible.'' OMB M-22-10 recognizes that burdens 
that seem minor when designing and implementing a program can have 
substantial negative effects for individuals already facing 
scarcity.\4\
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    \2\ Available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/M-22-10.pdf.
    \3\ As used in OMB M-22-10, ``public benefits programs'' is 
construed widely to include social welfare programs; social 
insurance programs; tax credits; and other cash, loan, or in-kind 
assistance, particularly those intended to support in-need 
individuals or communities.
    \4\ See, e.g., Office of Management and Budget, Study to 
Identify Methods to Assess Equity: Report to the President (July 
2021), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/OMB-Report-on-E013985-Implementation_508-Compliant-Secure-v1.1.pdf.
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    Through Federal agencies' PRA processes, OMB M-22-10 encourages 
agencies to (1) more completely and transparently articulate burdens 
experienced by the public when accessing public benefits programs and 
(2) use that analysis to minimize Federal information collection 
burdens, with particular emphasis on those individuals and entities 
most adversely affected by these burdens, particularly for historically 
underserved communities. OMB M-22-10 also calls on Federal agencies to 
emphasize systematic, rather than one-off, public program 
administrative burden reduction initiatives, including reviewing if 
every burden identified in an information collection request is 
strictly necessary under the relevant authorizing statute or program 
implementation regulation.

III. Purpose of This Request for Comment

    HUD's overarching goal is to pursue transformative housing and 
community-building policy and programs. To accomplish this goal and 
continue its efforts to reduce administrative burden, improve the 
customer experience for individuals seeking and receiving HUD services, 
and actively solicit input of program beneficiaries, HUD is soliciting 
comment to better understand, identify, and reduce the public program 
administrative burdens imposed through HUD's forms and other 
information collections that are experienced by members of the public 
who are entitled to benefits through one or more HUD public benefits 
programs.\5\ While certain HUD programs impose administrative burdens 
directly from HUD onto members of the public, much of HUD's work 
involves providing funding to State, local, or Tribal governments, 
grant recipients, nonprofits, businesses, or other entities that then 
provide a benefit to eligible members of the public through a program 
or service, often with the requirement that information be collected to 
satisfy HUD program compliance requirements in addition to their own 
and those of other Federal agencies. Given that HUD commonly provides 
funding for benefits but does not directly administer the programs or 
services to the public, HUD also invites public input relating to how 
HUD can reduce its program compliance information collection 
requirements for administrators of HUD funding, as well as how HUD 
might encourage administrators of HUD-funded programs or services to 
reduce their own public program administrative burden. HUD's specific 
questions regarding better understanding, identifying, and reducing 
public program administrative burdens are provided in the following 
section.
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    \5\ As used in this request for comment, ``HUD public benefits 
programs'' refers generally to any HUD program or service that 
benefits eligible members of the public.
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IV. Specific Information Requested

    While HUD welcomes all comments relevant to better understanding, 
identifying, and reducing the public program administrative burdens 
relating to HUD public benefits programs, HUD is particularly 
interested in receiving input on the questions listed below. To assist 
commenters, HUD provides the following guidance:

What do we mean by ``form''?

    When we ask the questions about ``forms'' we mean both paper forms 
as well as online or electronic forms such as web applications. This 
includes situations where you may verbally provide your responses 
instead of physically completing a form, such as through an in-person 
or phone-based interview. HUD is interested in forms produced directly 
by HUD as well as forms that are created by HUD program administrators 
(e.g., Public Housing Authorities, State and local governments, non-
profit recipients of CDBG and CDBG-DR programs, Multifamily Housing 
owners, FHA lenders, Continuums of Care) that are, at least in part, 
implementing HUD requirements.

What types of experiences with forms are we interested in learning 
about and what is helpful information to provide?

    HUD is interested in hearing about your experiences related to 
applying for or accessing HUD programs and services as well as 
experiences related to maintaining eligibility for those services, 
which might include activities like ongoing reporting requirements or 
recertification activities. While HUD is interested in input from all 
commenters, comments from organizations that provide direct assistance 
to individuals navigating application, reporting, and recertification 
processes, as well as individuals' direct experience completing and 
submitting forms, may be particularly helpful in identifying both 
unduly burdensome processes as well as opportunities for mitigating 
those burdens.
    HUD is interested in understanding circumstances regarding burdens 
associated with completing or submitting a form or set of forms as well 
as suggestions for where there are opportunities for improving the form 
or experience by improving the requirements, phrasing, design, or 
associated processes with the form. To your best ability, please 
describe in detail what makes specific forms burdensome or difficult to 
you, your

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organization, or your organization's clients. If you are able, please 
identify the name of the form, the form number, or provide a link to 
where the form is hosted.
    When providing comments, please indicate the specific question 
number to which you are responding.
    1. How can HUD reduce its public program administrative burden 
across HUD's public benefits programs? Specifically, is there 
information currently being collected by HUD or HUD program 
administrators (e.g., Public Housing Authorities, State and local 
governments, non-profit recipients of CDBG programs, Multifamily 
Housing owners, FHA lenders) that have no apparent use or benefit or 
can be streamlined? Additional prompts commenters' may wish to consider 
when developing their response to this question:
    a. Are there eligibility requirements or questions on a form for a 
specific benefit or program that are particularly difficult to 
understand, respond to effectively, demonstrate initial compliance 
with, or maintain compliance with?
    b. Does the form include documentation requirements that could be 
made simpler, less frequent, or more helpful or flexible to meet the 
ability of respondents to gather the documentation?
    c. Does completing the form involve multiple touchpoints with 
either agency or third-party personnel, such as through calls to help 
lines, in-person visits or consultations, or solicitation of help from 
other non-profit, legal aid, private legal counsel, or social service 
agencies?
    d. Are there significant discrepancies in how certain forms are 
implemented across States, localities, housing authorities, or other 
HUD program administrators responsible for collecting this information? 
Could HUD provide more standardized or template form or web application 
tools to reduce the need for non-Federal program administrators to 
develop their own forms or web applications?
    e. Are there specific challenges that persons with physical, 
speech, other communication-related, or other disabilities face in 
these processes that HUD should further address? What strategies or 
tools might succeed in reducing burden for these groups?
    f. Are there specific challenges that persons with limited English 
proficiency (LEP) face in these processes that HUD should further 
address? What strategies or tools might succeed in reducing burden for 
these groups?
    g. What specific challenges or barriers are experienced by other 
vulnerable sub-populations that may prevent individuals and entities 
from accessing benefits for which they are eligible? What strategies or 
tools might succeed in reducing burden for these groups?
    2. Are there data currently collected by HUD or HUD program 
administrators that could be shared with other agencies or program 
administrators to reduce the information collection burden of those 
programs? Are there data currently collected by other programs or 
agencies that if shared with HUD or HUD's program administrators could 
reduce the information collection burden of HUD's programs? When 
responding, please be specific about HUD and other agency programs, 
including the form(s) used by HUD or the other agency and the specific 
data collected that could be leveraged.
    3. Are there data collected by HUD that are not currently 
aggregated and shared publicly that should be aggregated and shared 
publicly to increase the value of those data being collected? Please be 
specific about which data, the form number on which it is collected, 
and how HUD might aggregate the data to be useful for the public.
    4. How can HUD use artificial intelligence, machine learning, or 
other advanced data science tools to automate, augment, or otherwise 
streamline its various information collections and the processes they 
support? Please identify which collections or processes could be 
improved using these tools; how advanced data science tools could help 
to complete these forms or processes more quickly and without 
sacrificing accuracy or security or perpetuating bias against certain 
populations; and any estimated time or cost savings that could result 
from these improvements. Potential responses could include but are not 
limited to processes related to development approval, processing of 
multifamily mortgage insurance applications, and reviews of 
applications submitted in response to notices of funding opportunities.
    5. Please provide any other input relating to how HUD can better 
understand, identify, and reduce the public program administrative 
burden associated with HUD's public benefits programs, including how 
HUD might better use technology to support data collection and data 
sharing.

Todd Richardson,
General Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Policy Development and 
Research.
[FR Doc. 2023-14634 Filed 7-12-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4210-67-P