OCCC New Regulations; Urban Affairs Committee Meets on Housing; New GLO RFP; Tiny Home Jamboree
Today’s post covers a wide array of topics. While we get ready for our 2018 TMHA Convention in Dallas on September 16-18, we continue to participating in all the regulatory meetings and coming legislative issues. But before we launch into today’s news, we want to encourage everyone to join us this year in Dallas.
We have packages for all levels of participation, including a single day rate for Monday, September 17, which is our education day with three simultaneous education tracks and 16 speakers for just $100.
OCCC:
Last Friday the Finance Commission met and approved new regulations for regulated lenders. These are lenders under Chapter 342, Finance Code. Lenders for personal property manufactured homes are regulated under Chapter 347, Finance Code. But we mention these new regulations because some of our members are also Chapter 342 regulated lenders because they offer other lending products for personal property purchases other than for manufactured homes, such as AC, skirting, etc. The proposed rules are in the meeting packet starting on page 65.
The OCCC also reported on the commission’s operations. A few interesting manufactured housing facts from the agency reports, of the 1,755 total complaints processed by the OCCC in 2017, 12 were complaints about manufactured home lenders. For fiscal year 2018 total complaints are currently 1,416 with seven related to MH lenders. The OCCC in 2017 conducted 95 complaint inspections, of which just two were manufactured home lenders. This current fiscal year there have been 64 investigations, with zero MH lender investigations. And lastly, closed enforcement actions administered by OCCC for the past four years (FY 2015-FY 2018) totaled 1,417, with only one single enforcement incident of imposing an injunction on a MH lender in 2017.
GLO:
On August 13, the General Land Office issued a new request for proposal to administer their Community Development and Revitalization (“CDR”) program. The RFP is seeking, “entity or entities experienced in economic, financial, and investment analysis of Small Business entities to design and directly implement the Economic Revitalization Program (the “Program”).”
The RFP is for the larger program administration of the Program. TMHA continues to monitor the state’s site were the GLO RFPs are issued.
Urban Affairs:
On Monday, August 20, the Texas House Urban Affairs Committee met in Houston. The meeting convened to, monitor housing needs in areas impacted by Hurricane Harvey including: the local, state, and federal governments' responses to short-term and long-term housing needs for those displaced by the storm; and changes in affordable and low-income housing needs in affected areas.
For nearly a year after the hurricane we have participated in the various committee hearings throughout the state. Monday’s hearing was like other hearings when looking back to evaluate the responses and status of the recovery. Chairwoman, Rep. Carol Alvarado specifically expressed her frustration at the slow deployment or lack of use of RV and MH inventory for temporary housing. The director of the Houston – Galveston Area Council responded that local acceptance, or refusal to accept temporary units was a significant impediment for deploying temporary units.
Pete Philips with the General Land Office testified that he expects the comprehensive report commissioned by the GLO with Texas A&M to come out within a month. The report will review all the lessons learned and contain recommendations for the legislature in 2019. TMHA’s Executive Director, DJ Pendleton, and VP of Operations, Rob Ripperda, met in May with the Texas A&M Commission to provide insight and recommendations related to both temporary and permanent housing recovery utilizing manufactured housing.
Tiny Home Jamboree:
Later this week the Tiny Home Jamboree comes to Austin. TMHA will be attending the event to see the latest and greatest in the tiny home space.