To amend the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 to provide reforms to housing counseling and financial literacy programs.
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill amends section 106 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968. It replaces a prior distribution standard with a requirement that housing counseling recipients be geographically diverse and include organizations serving urban or rural areas. It gives the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development authority to conduct on-site reviews, requires performance reviews of participating agencies, lets HUD compare pre-purchase counselor performance against covered mortgage loan default rates in comparable markets, and allows continuing education, probation, retesting, or permanent suspension of individual certification after repeated competence failures.
Who Benefits and How
Homebuyers, FHA borrowers, Native American housing loan borrowers, Native Hawaiian housing loan borrowers, and rural or urban communities benefit if HUD directs housing counseling resources to a geographically diverse network and uses performance review to improve pre-purchase counseling quality. Strong counseling agencies may also benefit when performance review distinguishes effective counseling from poor counseling.
Who Bears the Burden and How
HUD Office of Housing Counseling staff must run performance reviews, on-site reviews, default-rate comparisons, and certification actions. HUD-approved housing counseling agencies and individual counselors face new review exposure, continuing education requirements, probation, retesting, or certification suspension if counselor performance shows lack of competence and local service capacity would not be significantly reduced.
Key Provisions
- Requires housing counseling grant recipients to be geographically diverse and include urban or rural service organizations.
- Authorizes HUD to conduct periodic on-site reviews of participating agencies.
- Requires performance reviews covering compliance with housing counseling program requirements.
- Allows HUD to compare pre-purchase counselor performance against covered mortgage default rates in comparable markets.
- Authorizes continued education, probation, retesting, or permanent certification suspension for counselors who repeatedly fail competence standards.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Reform HUD housing counseling and financial literacy programs by changing grant-distribution criteria, requiring performance reviews of participating agencies, and tying counselor certification consequences to borrower-default comparisons.
Key Policy Areas
Housing, Financial Services, Consumer Protection
Primary Purpose
Reform HUD housing counseling and financial literacy programs by changing grant-distribution criteria, requiring performance reviews of participating agencies, and tying counselor certification consequences to borrower-default comparisons.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Homebuyers receiving housing counseling
- FHA borrowers
- Native American housing loan borrowers
- Native Hawaiian housing loan borrowers
- HUD-approved housing counseling agencies
Identified Costs
- HUD Office of Housing Counseling staff
- Housing counseling agencies
- Housing counselors
- Counselor certification administrators
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMr. David Scott of Georgia (for himself, Mrs. Beatty, and …
Referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.
Introduced in House
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
HUD-approved housing counseling agencies, Rural housing counseling organizations
Positive-direction: Rural housing counseling organizations
Negative-direction: HUD-approved housing counseling agencies
Homebuyers receiving pre-purchase housing counseling
Housing counselors subject to certification review
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "Beneficiaries"
- → ['Homebuyers', 'Borrowers', 'Housing counseling agencies']
- "Reviewed actors"
- → ['Housing counseling agencies', 'Housing counselors', 'Certification administrators']
- "Federal administrators"
- → ['HUD Office of Housing Counseling staff']
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology