The Resident Council: how it is formed and elected

It is the resident organisation that the Public Housing Administration’s and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s public policy requires in order to foster resident participation in the administration of public housing programmes. The regulation is issued under Act No. 97 of 1972, Act No. 66 of 1989 creating the Public Housing Administration, and the federal provisions of Part 964 of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations on tenant participation, among others. The Council must be a non-profit organisation and may be incorporated under Puerto Rico law; for some state and federal programmes incorporation is necessary to take part.

To be a member you must be eighteen or older — twenty-one if you will be an incorporator — or a head of household of any age per the lease; live in a public housing project; be included in the lease; comply with all that lease’s requirements, including being current on rent and utilities — water and electricity — and with state and federal rules; not have been judicially declared mentally incapacitated; not have been removed from any project’s Resident Council; not have a filing with substantiated evidence of a complaint or criminal action against a person or another’s property, the Managing Agent, the Council, the project or the Administration; and not hold a post relating to policy-making or decision-making in the Administration, the Resident Corporations or the Managing Agents. To vote it is enough to be a bona fide resident aged eighteen or over, or an emancipated head of household of any age.

• Filing the signed application at the project’s administrative office no less than seven (7) days before the election date.Verified against the official source
• Being current on rent and utilities — water and electricity — and complying with all the lease’s requirements.Verified against the official source
• That only one person per housing unit meeting the requirements sit on the Council, and that no candidate have blood ties to the third degree or affinity to the second with another certified candidate.Verified against the official source
• Reaching the participation quorum for the project’s size: 20% for 1 to 150 units, 15% for 151 to 300, and 10% for 301 units or more, counting one representative per housing unit.Verified against the official source
• Preparing written internal by-laws and submitting them to the residents for approval in an assembly with a simple-majority (51%) quorum.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

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   Step 1: Who may take part

   Councils are made up of residents of the public housing projects where they live who have voluntarily decided to take part, organise and join them. The membership requirements are a concrete list: being eighteen or older — twenty-one if the member will be an incorporator — or a head of household of any age per the lease; living in a public housing project; being included in the lease; complying with all the lease’s requirements, including being current on rent and utilities, water and electricity; not having been judicially declared mentally incapacitated; not having been removed from any project’s Council; not having a filing with substantiated evidence of a complaint or criminal action against a person or another’s property, the Managing Agent, the Council, the project or the Administration; and not holding any post relating to policy-making or decision-making in the Administration, the Resident Corporations or the Managing Agents.

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   Step 2: One person per unit, and no relatives

   Two short rules that decide candidacies. Only one person per housing unit meeting the requirements may join and be a member of the Council. And no Council candidate may have blood ties to the third degree or affinity to the second with any resident certified as a candidate for that Council. Worth checking before filing, not after.

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   Step 3: Seven days to file, twenty-four hours to certify

   Residents wishing to join the Council must file, no less than seven days before the election date, a signed application at the project’s administrative office. The project administrator will certify within twenty-four hours that the resident meets the requirements; if the certification is requested on a Friday or the day before a holiday, it is answered the next business day. If the candidate is not certified, the administrator will notify them in writing of the reasons they were not considered. And if the candidate disagrees, they have ten business days to appeal to the Organisation and Training Bureau.

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   Step 4: Secret ballot and a committee of three

   The election of members must be by secret ballot of those entitled to vote, through direct voting. The process must be organised and supervised by an elections committee of three: a Managing Agent representative, an external agent and a non-candidate resident acting as internal agent. That committee is appointed by the Managing Agent and the Council, if active, thirty days before the election. Every bona fide resident aged eighteen or over and any emancipated head of household of any age may vote; in multifamily housing the process follows the Horizontal Property Act.

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   Step 5: The quorum, and what to do if it fails

   For the Council’s composition to be representative, participation must reach a percentage depending on the project’s size, counting one representative per housing unit: twenty per cent in projects of one to one hundred and fifty units; fifteen per cent from one hundred and fifty-one to three hundred; and ten per cent from three hundred and one units on. If quorum is not reached, the elections committee has two alternatives for direct voting: extending the election period by two additional hours until quorum is reached, or moving the ballot box with the whole election process to the homes that have not voted, until it is complete.

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   Step 6: Five to thirteen members and two terms

   The Council must have no fewer than five members and no more than thirteen. Where there are only five candidates and one receives no votes, the election process is run again in no less than thirty calendar days. Where there is the maximum of eligible candidates and a tie, the elected members choose by secret vote who fills the last seat. Officer posts are filled by secret vote of the members. And there is a term limit: every member is entitled to two consecutive terms and may not stand again for six years, or whichever comes first; projects of thirty units or fewer are excluded from this requirement.

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   Step 7: When no Council is needed

   The regulation says it expressly: projects of one hundred units or fewer are not required to constitute a Resident Council, unless the residents wish to formalise one. It also contemplates the opposite: a Council may represent the residents of one or more public housing projects, provided the organisation includes representatives of each project, so there is reasonable and equitable representation of all, based on each one’s number of housing units; that requires the endorsement of a simple majority, fifty-one per cent, of all the projects represented.

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   Step 8: After the vote: certification and by-laws

   The Managing Agent certifies the election’s validity and files the election documents within ten calendar days with the Public Housing Administration for the Council’s certification. The Administration must issue that certification within no more than sixty business days of receiving the whole election process. Councils without approved internal by-laws are given thirty calendar days to submit them. Those by-laws have mandatory contents, starting with one that sets the clock: the board’s maximum term shall be no more than three years, and the by-laws may set a shorter term but not exceed it. They must also cover the organisation’s structure and each post’s duties, how vacancies are filled, the disciplinary procedure including removal, attendance requirements, the means to promote resident participation, the election and convening process, meetings and assemblies, and the procedure to amend the by-laws themselves.

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   Step 9: Challenging an election

   Every resident or candidate has the right to challenge an election before the Managing Agent and the Administration where they believe due process was not followed. The challenge is submitted in writing explaining the causes. And there is a surprising detail: the process must not be halted, it must continue as scheduled to the appointed hour. The staff assigned to the investigation, after evaluating all the evidence, will issue a written recommendation or final determination. The challenge must not exceed ten business days from the date the process was held.

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    Step 10: The notice: thirty days and five items

    A general assembly of residents is convened, with thirty days’ prior notice, to report on the election process and present the elections committee; that assembly must meet the same quorum from the table. The voting community is notified in writing about the elections, thirty days before the date, and that notice carries five items: a description of the election process, the eligibility requirements for candidates, the nominations date, the election date and the number of members to make up the Council.

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    Step 11: What the Council does once elected

    The regulation gives it concrete duties. Developing a work plan aimed at improving quality of life, the community’s economic development, family self-sufficiency and resident participation. Promoting participation in activities strengthening family unity. Taking part in drug-free community programmes. Developing a public communication plan to keep residents periodically informed of work plans, objectives, decisions, achievements and solutions. Being the community’s spokesperson on the problems affecting it. Coordinating with the public and private sector to obtain resources. Keeping an annual inventory and safekeeping the property assigned, bought or donated to it, filed and certified by the project administrator; handing that property to the incoming Council within no more than five business days; and reporting in writing to the administration and filing a police complaint within twenty-four hours if that property is vandalised, damaged or stolen.

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    Step 12: When the Council fails: the ten per cent

    The sanctions article opens with the most important rule for a resident: where it considers the Resident Council has breached its duties or acted against the common good, the assembly is sovereign and may revoke or remove the Council with the endorsement of at least ten per cent of residents. The article continues with other grounds: failing to submit the expense and budget report by the stipulated date suspends any disbursement until it is filed; if the Council fails to file the required reports and the Managing Agent presents sufficient evidence of the group’s inactivity, the Administration will decide on decertification; behaving indecorously or immorally or using foul language in meetings, activities, assemblies or hearings is grounds for removal, and whoever does so may not apply to be a member for six years; and representing personal interests rather than the project’s is grounds for dismissal. Against those determinations there are ten business days to appeal to the Organisation and Training Bureau, which has another ten business days to decide.

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    Step 13: What the Council cannot do

    The limitation-of-powers article clarifies it to prevent mistaken expectations. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development requires every housing authority to have community-elected Resident Councils, and the Council may take decisions on the residents’ behalf based on common problems, needs and interests, under 24 CFR 964. But the regulation closes by saying the Council will provide recommendations and may not take public policy decisions, which belong to the Administration.

The candidacy application is filed at the project’s administrative office, and the administrator certifies it there. The election documents are filed by the Managing Agent with the Public Housing Administration. Appeals from a refused certification and from sanctions go to the Organisation and Training Bureau. And anyone who considers their rights affected by determinations of the Managing Agent, the Administration or the Resident Corporations in interpreting this regulation may file a complaint under the current Regulation for Handling Complaints and Reports in Public Housing, which we did not read; in incorporated Councils, complaints are governed by the General Corporations Act.

• Filing the candidacy less than seven days before the election date.
• Standing with rent or utilities in arrears: the requirement is to be current on both.
• Putting forward two candidates from the same housing unit.
• Standing while having blood ties to the third degree or affinity to the second with another certified candidate.
• Giving up on an election without quorum: the committee may extend by two hours or move the ballot box.
• Letting the ten business days to challenge the process or appeal a refused certification pass.
• Approving by-laws with a board term longer than three years.
• Expecting the Council to take public policy decisions: the regulation says it provides recommendations.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Administración de Vivienda Pública (AVP)

  AVP

  docs.pr.gov

• Department of Housing regulations

  vivienda

  www.vivienda.pr.gov