80 FR 17769 - Implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974, as Amended; New System of Records, Rent Reform Demonstration

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 63 (April 2, 2015)

The Department's Office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) is proposing to create a new system of records (SORN), the ``Rent Reform Demonstration.'' The Department's Office of PD&R is responsible for maintaining current information on housing needs, market conditions and existing programs, as well as conducting research on priority housing and community development issues. The Rent Reform Demonstration is a randomized controlled experiment designed to test, at the national level an evaluation of alternative solutions designed to improve the current rent subsidy model. The demonstration is being implemented at several ``Moving to Work'' (MTW) public housing agencies (PHAs) in different parts of the country. Pursuant to the federal law authorizing MTW, Congress gave local public housing agencies the opportunity to design and test innovative policies to improve the current rent subsidy system. All MTW public housing agencies have the authority to institute new policies system-wide. The Rent Reform Demonstration gives participating MTW public housing agencies the opportunity to adopt new policies on a trial basis and to learn from a careful evaluation whether they achieve benefits for tenants and the housing agency. The overall objective of the Rent Reform Demonstration is to compare the current rent structure of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program to the alternate rent structure's to examine the impact on household employment, earnings, hardship, health, and homelessness; gain knowledge and comprehension on the impact that the alternative rent system has on HCV program families; and to identify ways to simplify and make less expensive the PHA's administrative processes. A more detailed description of the new system of records is outlined in the ``Purpose'' caption of this system of records notice.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 63 (Thursday, April 2, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17769-17772]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-07613]


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DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

[Docket No. FR-5843-N-05]


Implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974, as Amended; New System 
of Records, Rent Reform Demonstration

AGENCY: Office of the Chief Information Officer, HUD.

ACTION: New System of Records.

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SUMMARY: The Department's Office of Policy Development and Research 
(PD&R) is proposing to create a new system of records (SORN), the 
``Rent Reform Demonstration.'' The Department's Office of PD&R is 
responsible for maintaining current information on housing needs, 
market conditions and existing programs, as well as conducting research 
on priority housing and community development issues. The Rent Reform 
Demonstration is a randomized controlled experiment designed to test, 
at the national level an evaluation of alternative solutions designed 
to improve the current rent subsidy model. The demonstration is being 
implemented at several ``Moving to Work'' (MTW) public housing agencies 
(PHAs) in different parts of the country. Pursuant to the federal law 
authorizing MTW, Congress gave local public housing agencies the 
opportunity to design and test innovative policies to improve the 
current rent subsidy system. All MTW public housing agencies have the 
authority to institute new policies system-wide. The Rent Reform 
Demonstration gives participating MTW public housing agencies the 
opportunity to adopt new policies on a trial basis and to learn from a 
careful evaluation whether they achieve benefits for tenants and the 
housing agency.
    The overall objective of the Rent Reform Demonstration is to 
compare the current rent structure of the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) 
program to the alternate rent structure's to examine the impact on 
household employment, earnings, hardship, health, and homelessness; 
gain knowledge and comprehension on the impact that the alternative 
rent system has on HCV program families; and to identify ways to 
simplify and make less expensive the PHA's administrative processes. A 
more detailed description of the new system of records is outlined in 
the ``Purpose'' caption of this system of records notice.

DATES: Effective Date: The notice will be effective May 4, 2015, unless 
comments are received that would result in a contrary determination.
    Comments Due Date: May 4, 2015.

[[Page 17770]]


ADDRESSES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding 
this notice to the Rules Docket Clerk, Office of the General Counsel, 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., 
Room 10276, Washington, DC 20410-0500. Communication 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, Chief Privacy 
Officer, 451 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 20410 (Attention: 
Capitol View Building, 4th Floor), telephone number: (202) 402-8073. 
[The above telephone number is not a toll free number.] A 
telecommunications device for hearing-and speech-impaired persons (TTY) 
is available by calling the Federal Information Relay Service's toll-
free telephone number (800) 877-8339.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This system of records will be operated by 
HUD's Office of PD&R and will include personally identifiable 
information (PII) pertaining to participants of the Rent Reform 
Demonstration that will be retrieved from the system by a name or 
unique identifier. The new system of records will encompass information 
on program and services administered by the Department. Publication of 
this notice allows the Department to satisfy its reporting requirement 
and keep an up-to-date accounting of its system of records 
publications. The new system of records will incorporate Federal 
privacy requirements and Department's policy requirements. The Privacy 
Act provides individuals with certain safeguards against an invasion of 
personal privacy by requiring Federal agencies to protect records 
contained in an agency system of records from unauthorized disclosure, 
by ensuring that information is current and collected only for its 
intended use, and by providing adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of 
such information. Additionally, this notice demonstrates the 
Department's focus on industry best practices to protect the personal 
privacy of the individuals covered by this system of records notice.
    This notice states the name and location of the record system, the 
authority for and manner of its operations, the categories of 
individuals that it covers, the type of records that it contains, the 
sources of the information for the records, the routine uses made of 
the records and the type of exemptions in place for the records. In 
addition, this notice includes the business addresses of Department 
officials' who will inform interested persons of the procedures whereby 
they may gain access to and/or request amendments to records pertaining 
to them.
    This publication does meet the SORN threshold requirements pursuant 
to the Privacy Act and OMB Circular A-130, and a report was submitted 
to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Senate Committee on 
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the House Committee on 
Government Reform as instructed by Paragraph 4c of Appendix l to OMB 
Circular No. A-130, ``Federal Agencies 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: March 27, 2015.
Rafael C. Diaz,
Chief Information Officer.
SYSTEM OF RECORDS NO.:
    PD&R/RRE.05

SYSTEM NAME:
    Rent Reform Demonstration.

SYSTEM LOCATION:
    The Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street 
SW., Washington, DC 20140; MDRC, 16 East 34 Street, 19th Floor, New 
York, NY 10016 and MDRC, 475 14th Street, Suite 750, Oakland, CA 94612-
1900; eVault, 14944 Pony Express Road, Bluffdale, Utah 84065; Branch 
Associates, Inc., 1628 JFK Boulevard, Suite 800, 8 Penn Center, 
Philadelphia, PA 19103; Bronner Group, 120 N La Salle Street, Room 
1300, Chicago, IL 60602; Quadel Consulting Corporation, 1200 G Street 
NW., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005; Urban Institute, 2100 M Street 
NW., Washington, DC 20037; and Ingrid Gould Ellen, New York University, 
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, 295 Lafayette 
Street, New York, NY 10012. The storage and archival facility for the 
Rent Reform Demonstration data files is located at Datacenter/
Windstream, 15 Shattuck Road Andover, MA 01810.

 CATEGORIES OF INDIVIDUALS COVERED BY THE SYSTEM:
    The categories of individuals covered by this system will include 
all household members enrolled in the Rent Reform Demonstration.

CATEGORIES OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:
    The categories of records in the system will include the 
participants name, home address, telephone numbers, personal email 
address, Social Security Number, date of birth, marital status, 
citizenship status, rental housing assistance status and history, date 
of birth and relationship code for minors, Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program (SNAP) status, Temporary Assistance for Needy 
Families (TANF) status, income, savings level, debt level, educational 
attainment, employment status, childcare costs, health insurance 
status, and employment impediments.

AUTHORITY FOR MAINTENANCE OF THE SYSTEM:
    The authority for the collection of records, and the maintenance of 
this system is authorized by Sections 501-502 of the Housing and Urban 
Development Act of 1970 (Pub. L. 91-609), 12 U.S.C. 1701z-1, 1701z-2.

PURPOSE(S):
    The purpose of the Rent Reform Demonstration SORN is to allow the 
Department to collect, track, and study information gathered on HCV 
program participants, and to analyze the overall effectiveness of 
existing programs and policies to examine the impact on HCV program 
families. In order to study the sample of up to 9,000 families 
participating in the Demonstration, it is necessary to collect their 
contact information and other personal identifying information with 
their consent so that the Department can match study participants with 
various forms of administrative data for the purpose of conducting 
statistical analysis and presenting aggregate analysis of impacts of 
the alternative rent model on the study sample. In addition, the 
records collected through this evaluation represent HUD's effort to 
assess and report to Congress on the performance and impact of this 
Demonstration. The Department is conducting this study under contract 
with MDRC and its subcontractors (Branch Associates, The Bronner Group, 
Quadel Consulting Corporation, and the Urban Institute). The intent of 
the demonstration is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the 
impact that the alternative rent system has on families, as well as 
understand the administrative burden on Public Housing Agencies (PHAs). 
The Rent Reform Demonstration will rely on multiple data sources. The 
evaluation will include a careful assessment of the implementation, 
impacts, and cost of the new policy already developed by four PHAs in 
different parts of the country. The project is a random assignment 
trial of an alternative rent system. Families will be randomly

[[Page 17771]]

assigned to either participate in the new/alternative rent system or to 
continue in the current system. PHAs currently participating in the MTW 
Demonstration are being recruited to participate in this demonstration. 
Data collection will include the study sample of up to 9,000 families 
that are part of the treatment and control groups. The work covered 
under this information request is for the baseline survey. The Rent 
Reform demonstration is structured around a two-group random assignment 
study. Using this design, up to 9,000 households will be recruited and 
randomly allocated to the program group or control group, each of which 
will include up to 4,500 households. Four PHAs have agreed to 
participate in this demonstration project: (1) Lexington Housing 
Authority, Kentucky; (2) Louisville Metro Housing Authority, Kentucky; 
(3) San Antonio Housing Authority, Texas; and (4) District of Columbia 
Housing Authority, District of Columbia.
    The fundamental goals of the proposed study are:

1. Increase work effort and reported earnings of families
2. Serve more families

    Ideally, the alternative rent model would yield at least as much 
income to the PHAs as the current system and would allow administrative 
savings as well. This would allow them to serve at least the same 
number of families and continue to meet the goal of preventing (or 
reducing) homelessness and minimizing rent burden. In addition, the 
incentive to underreport income would be reduced significantly. In 
order to measure the impact of the alternative rent model the 
Department needs to be able to track the study sample of up to 9,000 
families to obtain data related to employment, earnings, and hardship 
outcomes.

ROUTINE USES OF RECORDS MAINTAINED IN THE SYSTEM, INCLUDING CATEGORIES 
OF USERS AND THE PURPOSES OF SUCH USES:
    In addition to those disclosures generally permitted under 5 U.S.C. 
Section 552a(b) of the Privacy Act, all or a portion of the records or 
information contained in this system may be disclosed outside HUD as a 
routine use pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(3) as follows:
    1. To appropriate agencies, entities, and persons to the extent 
that such disclosures are compatible with the purpose for which the 
records in this system were collected, as set forth by Appendix I \1\--
HUD's Library of Routine Uses published in the Federal Register (July 
17, 2012, at 77 FR 41996);
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    \1\ http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/documents/huddoc?id=append1.pdf.
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    2. To researchers for the purpose of producing a dataset to be used 
to support the Rent Reform Demonstration and Impact Evaluation of the 
Rent Reform Demonstration. The data collection will specifically 
provide data of the household's characteristics to describe the sample 
and ensure that the two study groups are random, and provide 
information that allows for the initial triennial calculations to be 
verified; and
    3. To appropriate agencies, entities, and persons when: (a) HUD 
suspects or has confirmed that the security or confidentiality of 
information in a system of records has been compromised; (b) HUD has 
determined that as a result of the suspected or confirmed compromise, 
there is a risk of harm to economic or property interests, identity 
theft or fraud, or harm to the security or integrity of systems or 
programs (whether maintained by HUD or another agency or entity) that 
rely upon the compromised information; and (c) the disclosure made to 
such agencies, entities, and persons is reasonably necessary to assist 
in connection with HUD's efforts to respond to the suspected or 
confirmed compromise and prevent, minimize, or remedy such harm for 
purposes of facilitating responses and remediation efforts in the event 
of a data breach.

POLICIES AND PRACTICES FOR STORING, RETRIEVING, ACCESSING, RETAINING, 
AND DISPOSING OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM:
STORAGE:
    All data collected will be input and stored in a secure database. 
Hard-copy materials containing respondent identifying information will 
be locked up when not in use. All hard-copy materials, including 
completed forms and electronic records on transportable media, will be 
kept in locked cabinets when not in use. In addition, data on 
transportable media will be encrypted. Records with PII will not be 
printed. Records and the file will be destroyed by MDRC at the 
completion of the study.

RETRIEVABILITY:
    Records will be retrieved by social security number, entity ID and/
or unique study identifier. Data will be retrieved from the initial 
data files using social security number, entityID, and/or unique study 
identifier. After receiving all data, another unique household ID will 
be assigned to each household known by the research team only (called 
the SampleID); records will be pulled by SampleID when possible.

SAFEGUARDS:
    Access protections: Access to any server, security, storage, 
backup, security and infrastructure equipment requires an 
administrative password. These passwords are only available to senior 
IT staff and never shared. MDRC workstation and laptop configuration: 
MDRC employees use as a work station a standard laptop that is 
configured by authorized members of MDRC's IT Group. Laptops include a 
fingerprint scanner and application. Network access passwords system: 
MDRC uses a strong password system to control access to its secure data 
transfer. An application associates each employee's fingerprint with 
his/her network password. Wireless Access: No wireless access will be 
available to files, folders or servers involved with this project, 
except within MDRC's offices. Screen locking: MDRC's IT department has 
configured all MDRC computers to lock after 10 minutes without use and 
require a password or fingerprint scan to unlock. MDRC confidentiality 
pledge: All MDRC staff must sign a Confidentiality Pledge to abide by 
the corporate policies on data security and confidentiality.

RETENTION AND DISPOSAL:
    The retention and disposal procedures will be in keeping with HUD's 
records management statutory obligations as described in 44 U.S.C. 3101 
and 3303. Records will be maintained for a period not to exceed five 
years. All PII associated with the project will be destroyed by MDRC 
and their subcontractors or otherwise rendered irrecoverable per NIST 
Special Publication 800-88 ``Guidelines for Media Sanitization'' 
(September 2006) at the end of the contract. At the end of the 
contract, MDRC will destroy all electronic and paper-based records with 
PII unless otherwise instructed by HUD. All incoming files will be 
accounted for at the end of the project--deleted or permanently 
archived per agreement with HUD and with data providers.

SYSTEM MANAGER(S) AND ADDRESS:
    Carol Star, Director, Division of Program Evaluation, Office of 
Policy Development and Research, Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 20410, Telephone 
Number (202) 402-6139.

[[Page 17772]]

NOTIFICATION AND RECORD ACCESS PROCEDURES:
    For information, assistance, or inquiries about the existence of 
records, contact Donna Robinson-Staton, Chief Privacy Officer, U.S. 
Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh Street SW., 
Room 4156, Washington, DC 20410 (Attention: Capitol View Building, 4th 
Floor), telephone number: (202) 402-8073. Verification of your identity 
must include original signature and be notarized. Written request must 
include the full name, Social Security Number, date of birth, current 
address, and telephone number of the individual making the request.

CONTESTING RECORD PROCEDURES:
    The Department's rules for contesting contents of records and 
appealing initial denials appear in 24 CFR part 16. Additional 
assistance may be obtained by contacting: Donna Robinson-Staton, Chief 
Privacy Officer, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 
Seventh Street SW., Room 4156, Washington, DC 20410 (Attention: Capitol 
View Building, 4th Floor), telephone number: (202) 402-8073 or 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:
    Data for this evaluation will be gathered through a variety of 
methods including informational interviews, direct observation, 
surveys, and analysis of administrative records. PHAs will provide 
program participants records, as well as information obtained through 
an interview of voucher holders that includes: (1) Output of random 
assignment process data, and (2) Responses provided to baseline 
information form. Administrative data will come from the participating 
PHAs' data systems and HUD's Inventory Management System, also known as 
the Public and Indian Housing Information Center (PIC). This 
information will be entered into MDRC's on-line system.

SYSTEMS EXEMPTED FROM CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF THE ACT:
    None.

[FR Doc. 2015-07613 Filed 4-1-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE CODE 4210-67-P