Latest Housing Updates from LeadingAge National
(Oct. 14, 2025) Affordable housing members should note the following updates from LeadingAge National:
HUD Delays Scoring for New Housing Standards. On Sept. 30th, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a Notice to delay scoring during inspections of certain new, “affirmative” safety requirements. The Notice, titled “Revised Compliance Date for NSPIRE New Affirmative Requirements,” was issued by HUD’s Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) to extend a current, temporary policy that exempts certain new safety standards from receiving a negative score during an inspection. LeadingAge National supports the decision to extend the current score delay policy and had previously advocated for HUD to establish a longer “on-ramp” for certain new standards by exempting them from scoring until 2027. Currently, certain standards were exempt from scoring until Oct. 1, 2026, but the extension pushes the deadline to Oct. 1, 2027. The extension gives more properties the chance to undergo a “phased-in” inspection and better understand and fix deficiencies before receiving negative scores on certain new standards that were recently introduced by HUD through the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE) protocol. Despite not impacting the overall score a property receives during an inspection, the property will still be notified of – and required to quickly fix – the specific deficiencies subject to the score delay policy. More information is available here.
Government Shutdown: Snap Survey for Affordable Housing Providers. Please help LeadingAge National understand the impacts of the current government shutdown on your affordable housing communities by completing this very short survey. This will also help LeadingAge National anticipate challenges the longer the shutdown goes on.
Register Now: The Changing Landscape of Service Coordination. Join LeadingAge National and the American Association of Service Coordinators (AASC) on Dec. 3rd and 7th at 2 p.m. ET for a two-part webinar series on the latest developments shaping Multifamily Service Coordinator programs funded through HUD. The webinar series will cover changes to HUD rules and expectations that are already impacting programs, including budget and salary changes, updated reporting requirements, HUD grant specialist staff capacity and structures, and quality assurance strategies. Don’t miss these critical updates! Register today.
ROAD to Housing Act Passes Senate. On Oct. 9th, the U.S. Senate passed the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act of 2025 (ROAD to Housing Act) as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2026 (NDAA). The ROAD to Housing bill is a bipartisan Senate bill co-sponsored by Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). The bill would reauthorize and reform HUD’s HOME program by eliminating the 24-month commitment deadline for HOME funds and streamlining the property inspection process for HOME-assisted properties, among other HOME changes. It would create a new program at HUD to address home repair needs and health hazards for homes occupied by households with low incomes (for owners and some small landlords). Among other provisions, the ROAD to Housing Act would also make changes to HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) housing preservation program, including removing the cap on the number of public housing units that could be preserved by RAD and other changes. The ROAD to Housing bill would also authorize decoupling of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rental assistance from maturing Section 515 mortgages to help preserve affordable multifamily housing in rural areas. LeadingAge National supports the bill. The U.S. House has no ROAD to Housing Act counterpart, but the House Financial Services Committee was expected to hold a housing hearing on Oct. 15th that could be the precursor to the House’s counterpart during negotiations for a final NDAA bill, the annual funding bill for the U.S. Department of Defense. The hearing has been postponed because of the government shutdown, but markups of “various measures” are still on the committee’s calendar for late October. The NDAA bill is often layered with unrelated items because it is seen as a “must-pass” vehicle for unrelated items to become enacted. A section-by-section summary of the ROAD to Housing Act is available here.
Contact: Jeff Diamond, jdiamond@leadingageny.org