Maintenance and claims in public housing

It is the Act that says what the Public Housing Administration owes to someone living in a public housing project. It does not regulate how housing is applied for or lost: it regulates maintenance, cleaning, ornato, repairs, modernisation, the handling of service claims and residents’ participation in caring for their own environment.

It concerns anyone living in a public housing project administered by the Public Housing Administration, and the communities of those projects, whom the Act calls to participate really and effectively in the administration, improvement, modernisation and ornato of their own living environments. It also reaches the municipalities, with whom the Board may contract the performance of services and works provided they have the capacity. The Act sets no income or eligibility requirements for public housing: that belongs to the application procedure, which is another matter.

• The Administration must adopt swift and simple methods and procedures to handle effectively, rapidly and timely the service claims of those living in the public housing projects (Article 3(b)).Verified against the official source
• The Administration is obliged to establish, maintain and execute the programmes needed for the maintenance, cleaning and ornato of the public housing projects, and to carry out ordinary and extraordinary repairs, improvements and modernisation works (Article 8).Verified against the official source
• The Administration shall set by regulation the minimum standards for the conservation and maintenance of all public housing projects (Article 8).Verified against the official source
• The regulations the Board adopts, except those of internal operation, are subject to the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (Article 13).Verified against the official source

• The annual programme for repair, maintenance and modernisation or rehabilitation of the public housing projects that the Administrator prepares and submits to the Board (Article 8).

1. 1

   Step 1: What the Administration owes by statute

   Article 3 creates the Public Housing Administration attached to the Department of Housing and gives it the aim of achieving a highly efficient administration of the public housing projects, with the flexibility to execute the public policy of improving quality of life in them, fostering community activity and the integral development of those who live there. Subsection (a) charges it with planning, organising, directing and coordinating all administrative activities of ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, cleaning, ornato, modernisation and general improvement of the projects, plus development debt service and collection and leasing efforts. That is the base: maintenance is not a favour, it is the function that justifies the agency.

2. 2

   Step 2: The clause that helps when nobody answers you

   If you have spent months asking for a repair, the text that helps you is Article 3(b): the Administration must “adopt swift and simple methods and procedures to handle effectively, rapidly and timely the service claims of those living in the public housing projects and that foster greater diligence in providing such services”. It is written as a duty of the agency, not an aspiration. That said, one must be honest about its limit: the Act sets no number of days for the Administration to answer a claim, creates no form, and imposes no sanction for failing. It gives the duty without the mechanism, and we do not invent the missing mechanism.

3. 3

   Step 3: The obligation to maintain, clean and repair

   Article 8 is the most concrete in the Act. It puts the Administration, through the Board, in charge of planning and programming ordinary and extraordinary preventive maintenance and the modernisation of the projects. The Administrator prepares and submits annually to the Board a programme for the repair, maintenance and modernisation or rehabilitation of the projects and of the structures and physical plant of the programmes under its administration. And the text uses the word obligation: the Administration “shall have the obligation to establish, maintain and execute the programmes needed for the maintenance, cleaning and ornato of the public housing projects”, and shall also carry out ordinary and extraordinary repairs, improvements and modernisation works on the physical plant.

4. 4

   Step 4: The minimum standards live in a regulation, not in the Act

   That same Article 8 closes with an important referral: the Administration, through the Board, “shall set by regulation the minimum standards for the conservation and maintenance of all public housing projects and of the structures and physical plant of the programmes under its administration”. That is, the concrete standard against which you could measure whether your project is well maintained is not in this Act: it is in a regulation this Act orders. We did not read it and we do not publish its content. Article 13 adds that the regulations the Board adopts, except those of internal operation, are subject to the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act — the compilation notes that Act 170-1988 was repealed and replaced by Act 38-2017 — which is the route by which a rule is challenged.

5. 5

   Step 5: The municipality may do the work

   A practical detail in Article 8 that explains why sometimes whoever turns up to fix things is not agency staff: the Board may contract with the municipalities to perform such services and works, provided they have the capacity to carry them out. The Act does not say what happens if the contracted municipality fails, nor does it create a mechanism for the resident to claim against the municipality instead of the Administration. We leave it stated as what it is: the Act authorises the contracting and stops there.

6. 6

   Step 6: What the Act expects of residents

   The Act is not one-directional. Article 3(c) charges the Administration with stimulating and achieving real and effective resident participation in the administration, improvement, modernisation and ornato of their own living environments, through educational or community work programmes. Subsection (d) goes further: to design and carry out, alone or with other public agencies or private entities, programmes or activities to teach residents the basic skills to do small maintenance and repair jobs on their own units themselves. And subsection (f) sets the goal: to get residents to keep their homes and common-use areas in good condition and progressively assume responsibility for maintenance, cleaning, ornato and minor repair tasks comparable to those assumed by the owners’ boards of private housing projects.

7. 7

   Step 7: Health and education services inside the project

   Article 3(i) is the least cited and among the most useful. It charges the Administration with arranging and coordinating with government agencies and municipalities the provision to residents of essential services such as health, recreation, education and social services, in the public housing project itself, to ease access to them and have them delivered in an integrated, effective and swift way. It is not a promise that they exist today in your project, and the Act does not set which ones or how often. It is a duty to arrange and coordinate, and it serves to know who to address when a community wants a service to come to the project instead of having to go out and find it.

8. 8

   Step 8: Where the improvement money comes from

   Article 12 creates in the Treasury Department a special fund called the Public Housing Improvement Fund. It is fed by legislative appropriations, by income from the rent collected on public housing projects built with local funds under its administration, and by donations and transfers from any other federal government agencies, income from special funds and donations from private persons and entities. It is administered per the Treasury Secretary’s regulations and is destined exclusively to serve the Administration’s aims and purposes. Worth knowing: part of the improvement money comes from the rent the residents themselves pay.

Before the Public Housing Administration, attached to the Department of Housing. Powers are exercised through a Board of Governors and an Administrator. Services and works may be contracted to the municipality, if it has capacity. To challenge a Board regulation, the route is the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act. The Act publishes no addresses, telephones, claim forms or portals, and we do not guess government internet addresses.

• Believing maintenance of the project is a favour: Article 8 calls it an obligation of the Administration.
• Looking in this Act for how many days the agency has to answer a claim: it sets no term, though it does require handling it rapidly and timely.
• Thinking the minimum conservation standards are in the Act: they are in a regulation the Act orders adopted.
• Assuming whoever comes to repair is always agency staff: the Board may contract services and works with the municipality.
• Confusing this Act with the public housing application procedure: Act 66-1989 regulates what the agency owes to someone already living in the project.
• Ignoring that the Act also expects resident participation in maintenance, cleaning and minor repairs of common areas.
• Not knowing you can ask for health, recreation, education and social services to be delivered inside the project itself: Article 3(i) makes it a duty to arrange.
• Believing the rent you pay does not come back to the project: the Improvement Fund is fed in part by the collection of that rent.
• Trying to challenge a Board regulation without the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act: Article 13 subjects them to it, except those of internal operation.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Administración de Vivienda Pública (AVP)

  AVP

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov