CAS to Inspect 1.3M-Home Public Housing Portfolio

By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor Boston–The capital planning subsidiary of CAS Financial Advisory Services (CAS FAS), On-Site Insight (OSI), has started field inspections of the nation’s 1,300,000-home public housing portfolio. The findings from these inspections will give Congress and HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) a quantitative cost estimate of addressing public housing’s…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor Boston–The capital planning subsidiary of CAS Financial Advisory Services (CAS FAS), On-Site Insight (OSI), has started field inspections of the nation’s 1,300,000-home public housing portfolio. The findings from these inspections will give Congress and HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) a quantitative cost estimate of addressing public housing’s multi-billion-dollar capital backlog.  Together with the prime contractor, Abt Associates, which will be responsible for data integration and cost extrapolation, CAS FAS will assess the portfolio’s physical condition and quantify the total cost of addressing physical and functional obsolescence. Responding to a Congressional directive to HUD to survey this vital housing resource, the study is HUD’s first large-scale assessment in more than a decade, and the first ever to look out 20 years.  “You shouldn’t make billion-dollar decisions in the dark,” says David A. Smith, CEO of CAS FAS. “But nobody knows with any precision how much it will cost to bring these properties up to an appropriate standard. We’ll deliver exact numbers policymakers can use to make accurate spending decisions.” Over the next five months, CAS FAS will visit and inspect more than 550 properties operated by 140 separate housing authorities in 39 states and territories. Home to more than 4,000,000 Americans, the public housing inventory is roughly half a century old, varies widely in age, quality, maintenance record and current physical condition. Observations will be compiled into a statistically meaningful projection of capital needs funding required. “This property capital needs analysis requires experienced people who are trained to a consistent high standard,” says Jed Lowry, CAS Financial Advisory Services’ director of capital planning. “We looked at this for HUD back in the mid-1980s, we know the physical infrastructure, and we’re expert in the legacy building systems.” CAS FAS has a field team of more than 20 inspectors.