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OVERVIEW OF THE FAMILY 

SELF–SUFFICIENCY PROGRAM 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HOUSING AND INSURANCE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services 

Serial No. 115–42 

( 

(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina, 

Vice Chairman 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan 

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin 

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

ANDY BARR, Kentucky 

KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

LUKE MESSER, Indiana 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas 

BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine 

MIA LOVE, Utah 

FRENCH HILL, Arkansas 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia 

THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

TED BUDD, North Carolina 

DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee 

CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York 

TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana 

MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking 

Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

AL GREEN, Texas 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan 

JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland 

KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona 

JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio 

DENNY HECK, Washington 

JUAN VARGAS, California 

JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey 

VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada 

KIRSTEN SUTTON MORK, Staff Director 

(III) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND INSURANCE

SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin, Chairman 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida, Vice Chairman 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey 

TED BUDD, North Carolina 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri, Ranking 

Member 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio 

DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan 

JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland 

RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada 

(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

September 27, 2017 .......................................................................................... 1 

Appendix: 

September 27, 2017 .......................................................................................... 27 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 

Gornstein, Aaron, President and CEO, Preservation of Affordable Housing ..... 4 

Lubell, Jeffrey, Director of Housing and Community Initiatives, Abt Associates ........................................................................................................................ 5 

Riva, Sherry, Executive Director, Compass Working Capital .............................. 10 

Siglin, Kristin, Senior Vice President, Policy, Housing Partnership Network ... 9 

Spann, Stacy L., Executive Director, Housing Opportunities Commission of 

Montgomery County ............................................................................................. 7 

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Gornstein, Aaron .............................................................................................. 28 

Lubell, Jeffrey ................................................................................................... 32 

Riva, Sherry ...................................................................................................... 39 

Siglin, Kristin ................................................................................................... 50 

Spann, Stacy L. ................................................................................................. 55 

(1) 

OVERVIEW OF THE FAMILY 

SELF–SUFFICIENCY PROGRAM 

Wednesday, September 27, 2017 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING

AND INSURANCE, COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:03 p.m., in room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sean P. Duffy [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Duffy, Ross, Posey, Luetkemeyer, Stivers, Rothfus, Zeldin, Trott, MacArthur, Budd; Cleaver, 

Beatty, Kildee, Kihuen, and Gonzalez. 

Chairman DUFFY. The Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance 

will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of 

the subcommittee at any time. 

Also, without objection, members of the full Financial Services 

Committee who are not members of the subcommittee may participate in today’s hearing for the purposes of making an opening 

statement and questioning the witnesses. 

Today’s hearing is entitled, ‘‘An Overview of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program.’’ 

The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for an opening 

statement. I want to welcome our witnesses, our members, and our 

audience here today for our Housing and Insurance Subcommittee 

hearing on the Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS). 

As we start to look at how to reform the housing finance system—we are going to do that this fall—we also want to look at programs that help those who cannot afford to purchase a home and 

to utilize programs such as the the Family Self-Sufficiency Program to reduce our dependency on welfare assistance and rental 

assistance that is provided by the Government. 

We are joined by five great witnesses, each of whom work in a 

capacity with this program, and we are looking forward to their insightful commentary and the advice they have for this subcommittee. 

The Family Self-Sufficiency Program is focused on helping families who are in public housing, Housing Choice Voucher Program 

participants, residents of HUD-assisted housing, and residents of 

the Project-Based Rental Assistance Programs. 

The goal is to utilize a number of services coordinated through 

the program to help families with individual training to increase 

2 

their employability and become less dependent on government assistance. These services can include basic education, childcare, 

transportation, education, job training, employment counseling, financial literacy training, mental health referrals, and home ownership counseling. 

While receiving these services, an interest-bearing escrow account is established for the family that can be used for any purpose 

once the family graduates from the program. The Family Self-Sufficiency Program is administered by the public housing authorities 

who work with a program coordinator committee that identifies 

partners, both public and private, for the operation of the program. 

Partners may include workforce investment boards, local governments, and local departments of health, just to give a few examples. These families generally enter into a 5-year contract of participation that incorporates individual training and a service plan. 

The service plan serves as a guideline of goals and steps the family 

must make in order to graduate from this program. 

Through a Family Self-Sufficiency coordinator, they receive supportive services needed to achieve economic self-sufficiency, increase their employability and income, and move towards independence from the public housing system and towards home ownership. 

In addition to the help families receive in supportive services, an 

interest-bearing account is set up. The difference between the initial rent and the increased rent due to increased income goes into 

to the escrow account each month. 

The escrow account can then be accessed by the family for any 

reason once the program is completed. So here you have a family 

who has gone through a program. They have the training. They are 

self-sufficient, and they have a pot of money that they can potentially use to put down on a house. Or they can get a new or a used 

car that can effectively get them to work. It is a program that actually makes a lot of sense. 

So for the program to be completed, these families must comply 

with the lease, be welfare-free for 12 consecutive months, and the 

head of the family must seek and maintain employment. 

There are a lot of conversations we have about the programs that 

come through this committee and how effectively they work, but I 

think this is one where you look at providing people services and 

moving them from dependence to independence, and giving them 

that hand up that they need to get there makes a lot of sense. 

And again, I look forward to hearing from this panel on how we 

can take a new look at the program. What are the bright spots of 

the program? How is it working well? And what can we do differently to maybe make some tweaks or changes to the program so 

we can help a few more people? 

If it works for some, maybe we expand that small number and 

be able to grow it to a much larger number. So how do we take 

lessons learned, good and bad, and make improvements that can 

help more people? I am grateful for your participation, and I look 

forward to your testimony. 

And with that, I now recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, for 5 minutes. 

3 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My mother actually enrolled in Midwestern University when we were still living in public 

housing. I think I was in the sixth grade when she enrolled in Midwestern to pursue her degree in early childhood and elementary 

education. Everyone can’t do that and is not going to be expected 

to do that. 

And so I would have to declare that I think that the Center On 

Budget and Policy Priorities was absolutely right when they proclaimed this program as HUD’s best-kept secret for promoting employment and asset growth. I was mayor—to fast forward—of Kansas City when George H.W. Bush signed this into law in 1990. 

There was obviously going to be some apprehension about the 

program, but overall I think that individuals who have successfully 

completed the program after 5 years of participation, and they receive the funds to use for various jobs or housing needs, prove this 

program to be successful. 

I welcome the opportunity to hear from those of you who are 

kind enough to come in and provide us with testimony about the 

program. We are still waiting on some results of a comprehensive 

national assessment, individual experience in administrating and 

participation in the program. 

And I know that my longtime friend and colleague, Senator Roy 

Blunt, has introduced a bill over in the Senate, the Family SelfSufficiency Act. And this bill, if approved, would make important 

improvements to the program including the merging of housing 

choice vouchers, the FSS program and Public Housing, FSS program into—into one, expanding the scope of supportive services 

and allowing project-based rental assistance residents to be eligible. 

I plan to introduce a House version of that same bill shortly. 

Senator Blunt and I have had conversations about this bill, and 

both of us are committed to trying to get a bill to the President’s 

desk. 

So Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding the hearing. I know this 

is not one of the more sexy issues to come up before the committee. 

I noticed the empty seats and people are not—there’s no popcorn 

or anything. 

I know we will try not to put you to sleep so we would—I am 

going to ask that all of you witnesses to please put an extra ounce 

of energy into your responses as we move through this hearing. 

Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman DUFFY. The gentleman yields back. I’m looking forward toward a popcorn-filled, exciting hearing today. 

So with that, let us welcome our witnesses. First, we have Mr. 

Aaron Gornstein, the president and CEO of Preservation of Affordable Housing. And our next witness is Mr. Jeffrey Lubell, director 

of housing and community initiatives at Abt Associates. 

We then have Mr. Stacy Spann, executive director of the Housing 

Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County. And then we 

have our fourth witness, Ms. Kristin Siglin, senior vice president 

of policy at the Housing Partnership Network. And finally, last but 

not least, we have Sherry Riva, founder and executive director of 

Compass Working Capital. 

4 

In a moment the witnesses are going to be recognized for 5 minutes each to give an oral presentation of their testimony. And without objection, the witnesses’ written testimony will be made a part 

of the record. 

Once the witnesses have finished their presentation, each member of the subcommittee will have 5 minutes within which to ask 

our panel questions. 

And so with that, Mr. Gornstein, I now recognize you for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF AARON GORNSTEIN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, 

PRESERVATION OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the Family SelfSufficiency Program, or FSS. I am Aaron Gornstein, and I serve as 

the CEO of Preservation of Affordable Housing, or POAH. 

We are a private, nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve and create affordable homes that support economic security. 

Since its founding in 2001, POAH has preserved or built more than 

9,000 apartments in 9 States and the District of Columbia. 

We believe that access to affordable housing is a crucial step in 

overcoming the challenge of poverty. But we also know that stable 

housing is only one part of the solution. POAH is committed to 

using our housing as a platform for the delivery of support services 

like onsite after-school programs to boost educational achievement, 

budgeting programs to maintain tenancies, and job training to help 

residents increase their earnings. 

That is why POAH was one of the first private owners of HUDassisted housing to adopt FSS. Last year we launched the program 

at 4 sites, and then expanded to 7 this year with 1,100 eligible 

households. As the ranking member may know, we just launched 

at Hawthorne Apartments in Independence, Missouri, for example. 

After 18 months, the program’s early results are very encouraging. We have enrolled 30 percent of our eligible households, 

which is 6 times the national average. 

At one of our original sites, 65 percent of the target households 

are engaged and working towards earnings and savings goals. We 

have already seen an average increase in earned income of 14 percent. The percentage of participating households who are employed 

has increased by 19 percent. And we have had three households 

graduate from the program by reaching their self-sufficiency goals 

and ending receipt of TANF assistance. 

We attribute this early success to three key factors. First, our 

program is implemented by very committed and well-trained property managers and a highly effective service partner, Compass 

Working Capital. And you will hear from Sherry towards the end 

of this panel. 

Second, we use a site-based service model allowing participants 

to access financial coaching, workshops, and other resources where 

they live. And third, the HUD staff have been fully committed to 

making the program successful. We also appreciate Secretary Carson’s personal interest in the FSS program. 

5 

Finally, I want to suggest a few recommendations. First, we are 

hopeful that Congress will create permanent authority for FSS in 

privately owned assisted properties. The lack of permanent authority means that owners face the risk that their program may lapse 

in any year, leaving them unable to deliver on the commitments 

they have made to participating families. 

And second, we encourage Congress to clarify that the escrow incentive should stay in place until a resident reaches 80 percent of 

area median income, rather than the current 50 percent cutoff. The 

current limitation prevents the program from helping some residents climb the last few rungs on the ladder to economic security. 

POAH strongly supports S.1344, which Congressman Cleaver 

mentioned, a bipartisan bill introduced by Senators Blunt, Reed, 

Scott, and Menendez, because it responds to the opportunities I 

have mentioned and makes a number of other important improvements to strengthen the program. And we certainly hope the House 

will introduce legislation that mirrors those important provisions. 

In conclusion I reiterate POAH’s conviction that the FSS program is a very promising tool that private owners can use to help 

residents increase earnings, grow savings, and reduce dependency 

on public assistance. 

We would be pleased to work with the subcommittee on any improvements and enhancements to the program, and I thank you for 

giving me the opportunity to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gornstein can be found on page 

28 of the appendix.] 

Chairman DUFFY. Thank you, Mr. Gornstein. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lubell for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY LUBELL, DIRECTOR OF HOUSING 

AND COMMUNITY INITIATIVES, ABT ASSOCIATES 

Mr. LUBELL. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the 

FSS program. 

My name is Jeff Lubell, and I am the director of housing and 

community initiatives at Abt Associates. We are a mission-driven 

research and consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

that conducts program evaluations, performs research, and provides technical assistance and consulting services on a wide range 

of social programs. 

I have been researching and writing about FSS for about 20 

years. Count me in the camp who opens up the popcorn when 

something new comes out about FSS. And Ranking Member 

Cleaver, I appreciate the metaphor there. 

I would like to cover three main things: first, to just elaborate 

a little bit more on how the program works; second, to summarize 

what we know from research about FSS; and third, to quickly identify some of the steps that HUD has taken in recent years to improve the program. 

So as has been mentioned, FSS was signed into law by the first 

President Bush. It has enjoyed a long history of bipartisan support 

over the years. It has three main pieces. One is stable, affordable 

6 

housing. You need that to be able to focus on getting and keeping 

a job but that is not enough. 

The second piece is case management or coaching to help participating families achieve their career and financial goals. And here 

I just want to emphasize that this is a very cost-effective approach. 

It is not about duplicating services. It is about linking families up 

to services that exist in the community. 

The third part is a financial incentive for families to increase 

their earnings in the form of an escrow account that grows as their 

earnings grow. Basically, everybody in subsidized housing pays 30 

percent of their income for rent. 

But if you are in this program, an amount that is equal to the 

increase in rent that is attributable to the increase in earnings 

goes into this escrow account. And you get that money if and only 

if you succeed in graduating from the program or if you qualify for 

an interim disbursement, like if your car breaks down and you 

need help getting it repaired so you can get to work. 

This is important because it helps people get used to paying 

higher rent, which is an important part of ultimately transitioning 

to private market housing. To graduate, you have to achieve the 

goals that you set out, and you have to become employed, and you 

have to get off of welfare assistance. All of those things, I think, 

are things that we would all support. 

On balance, the research evidence is positive. HUD has funded 

two national studies that examined the growth of earnings of FSS 

participants over time, and both found that earnings grew substantially. 

The most recent study found that after 4 years, about a quarter 

of the families who graduated from FSS, their annual earnings had 

increased from an average of $20,000 in 2006 to $33,000 in 2009. 

That is a $13,000 increase, and it was not a particularly strong period for the economy. And they had about $5,294 on average in 

their escrow accounts. 

Another quarter were still enrolled in the program and had experienced meaningful gains in earnings and hours worked and had 

escrow balances of about $3,500. They hadn’t graduated because 

the program is a 5-year program with an opportunity for 2 years 

of extension, so that is partly what is going on there. 

There were families who were no longer in the program. We can 

talk about that. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for a 

large share of people. 

Unfortunately, there was no control group for this study, and 

that is really important. You need a comparison group in order to 

be able to say something definitive. 

HUD has commissioned a randomized control trial. The early 2- 

year results from that trial are expected later this year or early 

next year. But remember, FSS is a 5-year program. Those early results are only going to cover 2 years. So we are not going to have 

long-term outcomes for many, many years to come, but stay tuned. 

It is going to be an important study. 

Now, there have been a number of local evaluations. One of them 

is something that we just conducted of the Compass Working Capital programs in Cambridge, and Lynn, Massachusetts, that they 

7 

administer in partnership with the housing authorities. And that 

looked at results after 40 months and were generally very positive. 

Specifically, when we compared the results for FSS participants 

against the comparison, we saw that the Compass FSS participants 

had earned $6,305 more. Their annual earnings had increased by 

$6,000. That is about 30 percent. And their annual welfare income 

had declined by $500. 

They also had improved credit scores. They had reduced debt levels, and reduced credit card and derogatory debt. I can talk more 

about it, but I am running out of time, and there are other studies 

I am happy to talk about, including one in New York City. 

I just want to emphasize quickly before I stop that HUD is really 

investing in trying to make this program better. We worked with 

them to develop a guidebook of promising practices based on the 

experiences of a number of FSS practitioners around the country. 

That came out along with an online training. 

We are also working with them on a system for measuring performance, a performance measurement system that is very close to 

coming out. It is nearly done and that will help ensure that local 

programs are accountable for their results. 

I look forward to the opportunity to answer any questions that 

you may have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lubell can be found on page 32 

of the appendix.] 

Chairman DUFFY. Thank you, Mr. Lubell. 

Mr. Spann, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF STACY L. SPANN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION OF MONTGOMERY 

COUNTY 

Mr. SPANN. Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member 

Cleaver, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. 

My name is Stacy Spann, and I am the executive director of the 

Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC) of Montgomery County, 

in Montgomery County, Maryland. 

Our housing commission is the largest provider of high-quality, 

amenity-rich, affordable housing to low- and moderate-income 

households in our county. And as a designated public housing agency, we are serving approximately 13,800 households through all of 

our housing programs, including administration of the voucher program as well as other Section 8 programs. 

We also operate non-Federal affordable housing programs as well 

as finance and develop affordable housing units throughout our 

county. In our role as housers, we take great pride in the enrichment of programs and supportive services we are providing to connect our customers and helping folks reach their fullest potential. 

HOC is delivering robust workforce and education programming 

for adults and youth, including our Fatherhood Initiative, a suite 

of educational opportunities for adults and youth, we call HOC 

Academy. And in addition to HUD’s FSS program, we are working 

hard to transform lives by providing career development support. 

The participants that we are working with are receiving comprehensive case management and service connections that support 

8 

them in gaining and improving employment through one-on-one assessments, goal-setting, referrals, skills training, and education. 

Since HOC’s FSS program began in 1993, we have graduated 938 

participants from the program, and it has actually evolved significantly since we began. In 2015, we had a shift in leadership and 

took the opportunity to examine our program, look inward, and 

really figure out how we could administer the program better. 

We wanted to ensure that enrolling customers in our FSS program and guiding them through the process was not just pro 

forma. We are not interested in simply checking the box and tallying the numbers. We took a step back and asked ourselves, what 

are we doing to help our customers achieve progress? 

Are we requiring people to take meaningful strides toward selfsufficiency in order to graduate? And we understand that making 

a decision to change your life is difficult. 

As an agency, what we wanted to do was be certain that we are 

giving our customers our best effort to do this, this personal and 

extremely deep work. If participants were graduating only to find 

that they were accessing emergency rental assistance programs or 

facing eviction just a few months later, then we are clearly not 

doing our jobs. 

So in taking the time, we actually decided to re-tool the program 

in its entirety. And in fact, the case managers are now the persons 

who are responsible for working with families from the start to the 

end. And when they are coming up for recertification, our folks are 

actually doing that work as well. 

Unfortunately, we lost some individuals, but what we gained was 

real quality in the group of individuals that we are working with. 

We reopened our program, and just last week, on the 21st, we celebrated our gradation. 

And there we were celebrating the accomplishments of 63 FSS 

graduates. Where 52 percent of those graduates were unemployed 

at enrollment, 100 percent were employed by graduation, having at 

least 12 consecutive months of employment. 

And as a group, the average earned income of the participants 

quadrupled from $8,000, a little over, to about $37,393 annually. 

So that is a huge increase, but we have more work to do. 

Through our mortgage programs, our own homeownership initiatives, we are able to support families. And while our graduates are 

accomplishing much, it is little as compared to their peer group in 

Montgomery County where the average income is over $100,000. 

That gap is significant. So we have miles to go. 

I wanted to take, in my last seconds, an opportunity to thank you 

and say, while this is difficult and challenging work, authorities, 

agencies who are doing the work should not be penalized when 

they take a step back and really examine how they are meeting the 

customers’ needs. 

And so if there are any improvements to be made, certainly I am 

happy to work with this august group on the panel, as well as 

those at HUD. 

The improvement ought to be that every single family can’t do 

the same work, the same way. Every single family is not engaged 

the same way. And unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all in 

this program. Thank you very much. 

9 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Spann can be found on page 55 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. ROSS [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Spann. 

Ms. Siglin, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF KRISTIN SIGLIN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

POLICY, HOUSING PARTNERSHIP NETWORK 

Ms. SIGLIN. Good afternoon. I am Kristen Siglin, senior vice 

president of policy at the Housing Partnership Network (HPN), a 

business collaborative of nearly a hundred nonprofits that develop 

and finance affordable housing and community development 

projects in all 50 States. 

HPN members work together on businesses that make them 

more efficient and effective at delivering affordable housing. For example, HPN members together own a property and casualty insurance company that insures their apartments. 

HPN members also work together on public policy and learn 

from each other, which is what leads me to FSS. In 2014, two HPN 

members, Preservation of Affordable Housing, which you already 

heard from, and the Caleb Group, approached me and said that 

they wanted to offer FSS to their residents. 

At the time, FSS could only be administered by housing authorities for public housing residents, or voucher holders. But FSS is a 

very intuitive model that makes a lot of sense. It combines the 

three elements you have heard of: stable, affordable housing; financial coaching; and an escrow account to help the residents build assets. 

So in 2015 the appropriations committee, with some support 

from members of this committee, agreed to open up the FSS program to Project-Based Rental Assistance. When the law was 

changed, these HPN members, who had already been thinking 

about this and wanting to do this asset building work with their 

residents, got to work. 

And you have already heard from POAH, so I will talk about the 

other HPN member, the Caleb Group, which actually worked with 

Compass Working Capital on the coaching piece of the project. 

The Caleb Group owns 2,000 units of affordable housing in four 

States: Massachusetts; Connecticut; New Hampshire; and Maine. 

And their first FSS projects were in Willimantic, Connecticut, and 

another one in Gloucester, Massachusetts. 

And the residents have not completed their 5 years yet, yet of the 

34 families who have began the program, already 5 of them have 

graduated. Four of those families created escrow, and the average 

escrow was $8,543. So that is significant. 

Three of them used that escrow to buy a home. The CEO of the 

Caleb Group, Debbie Nutter, e-mailed me and said, ‘‘The major 

point is how satisfying it is to show folks how they can make the 

leap.’’ That is what she wanted me to tell you. 

There are two important points to make about FSS. One is that 

the program is voluntary. Housing authorities and project-based 

owners choose to offer it or not, and residents choose to participate 

or not. And I think this aspect, that it is a coalition of the willing, 

makes it an effective program. 

10 

The other thing is it is very small in the universe of HUD programs. According to the latest figures from HUD, there are 72,000 

families currently enrolled in FSS. So if if you find this model appealing, there is something you can do to help: Introduce and pass 

legislation similar to the Senate legislation introduced by Senator 

Roy Blunt of Missouri and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. To 

us, the most important part of the Blunt-Reed bill is making permanent that extension of the program to privately owned rent 

projects with rental assistance, because currently, private nonprofits are not eligible to compete for the service coordinator dollars 

that housing authorities use to run the program; that money is all 

spoken for. So our members do private fundraising, as Aaron 

Gornstein did. 

It is hard to convince members to open an FSS program when 

they want to be able to do it—it is a 5-year program. You need to 

offer that escrow every year. So it would be very helpful if you all 

permanently authorized the extension of FSS to project-based rental assistance. 

In conclusion, I would like to commend this subcommittee for 

shining a light on this program. If new housing providers can offer 

FSS for the residents, we can continue to amass evidence on what 

works to help residents to achieve more success. 

This is a voluntary program that could become a model for using 

the power of stable, affordable housing, to help families achieve 

their dreams. It would be very impressive in a time of partisan division over so many issues for this subcommittee to come together 

around improvements and expansion of a program that makes a 

great deal of common sense and gives families a tangible path to 

hope and opportunity. 

Thanks for inviting me. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Siglin can be found on page 50 

of the appendix.] 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, Ms. Siglin. 

Ms. Riva, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF SHERRY RIVA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

COMPASS WORKING CAPITAL 

Ms. RIVA. Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member 

Cleaver, and members of the subcommittee, and thank you for the 

opportunity to testify today about the Family Self-Sufficiency Program. 

My name is Sherry Riva, and I am the founder and executive director of Compass Working Capital. We are a nonprofit financial 

services organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. 

I am here today to share my deep support for the FSS program 

and my thoughts on ways in which Congress can take action to expand the scope and impact of the program around the country. 

There are three key points I would like you to remember from 

my testimony today. First, the FSS program empowers low-income 

American families to transform their own lives. It provides opportunities for working families to save for and invest in themselves, 

in their children, and in their futures. 

Second, as you heard from Jeff Lubell, the FSS program is a 

promising, evidence-based model that has enjoyed strong bipartisan 

11 

support since it was introduced in the 1990s. FSS promotes work, 

it helps people build savings, and it creates the conditions for families to move themselves up and out of poverty. It is ripe for expansion and for greater public-private partnership. 

And finally, the most important action this subcommittee can 

take is to introduce legislation that mirrors the provisions of the 

Family Self-Sufficiency Act, the bill that was recently introduced in 

the Senate. 

Let me just briefly take a step back and tell you more about 

Compass, how we do this work, and why we chose to focus on the 

FSS program as a tool to achieve our mission. 

We are not housers at Compass. Our mission at Compass is to 

help low-income families build assets and financial capabilities as 

a pathway out of poverty. Our work is grounded in two core fundamental beliefs. First, poverty is not just an income problem. It is 

a wealth problem. All people need and deserve access to opportunities to save for and invest in themselves and in their families. 

And the second belief is this: Low-income families have hopes 

and dreams for themselves, their children, and their futures, as all 

of us do. And our experience at Compass is that families want to 

work, they are working, and they want to get ahead. 

And our job, our first job at Compass is to tap into these deeply 

held aspirations and invest in families’ abilities to transform their 

own lives. So at Compass we saw in the FSS program an incredibly 

powerful tool to help low-income American families who live in subsidized housing to escape poverty and to access broader economic 

opportunity. And that is why we have dedicated ourselves for the 

last 7 years to expanding the scope and impact of this program 

around the country. 

The Compass FSS program builds on the fundamental components of the FSS program, which is affordable housing, service coordination, and access to this escrow account, which my follow witnesses have discussed. And we combine that core model with robust financial coaching and education to drive even stronger outcomes for participants. 

We partner with public housing authorities and affordable owners in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. And building 

on our success in New England, in late 2016 we launched a national network to support mission-aligned partners in other parts 

of the country to unpack that power of this wealth-building model 

in their own communities. 

Our initial partners in the national network are in Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois, and we field new inquiries from 

housing partners around the country every single week. 

The best way though to hear and understand the power of the 

FSS program is to share a story. So I am going to, in closing, take 

a moment to tell you about Tanya Febrillet, who is a graduate of 

our FSS program in Lynn. 

When Tanya enrolled in our program she had been receiving 

housing assistance for 4 years. She was working full-time, raising 

her two kids, but she had bigger dreams, including owning her own 

home. 

At the time, Tanya believed that owning a home—and these are 

her words not mine—‘‘wasn’t for families like mine, a single, lowVerDate Nov 24 2008 17:18 May 15, 2018 Jkt 029709 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\29709.TXT TERI
12 

income mother who came from a family where no one had ever 

been a homeowner.’’ 

The FSS program was just what Tanya needed to achieve her 

dreams. After she joined FSS, she started working with a financial 

coach. She increased her income by nearly $8,000, improved her 

credit score by 140 points, saved about $3,000 in her escrow account, and became a homeowner. She graduated in 2015 and became a homeowner, the first person in her family to do so. 

The truth is, and the most important thing to say today is that 

there are so many more families like Tanya’s that we can and 

should be reaching in this program. 

By bundling affordable housing assistance, support for families, 

and a savings account, FSS is a fundamentally strong program, 

and we believe it can be even stronger and help more families escape poverty and achieve their dreams. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Riva can be found on page 39 of 

the appendix.] 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, and I thank the witnesses for their testimony. 

I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions. In my 

area of central Florida, we have a significant need for affordable 

housing. In fact, in the Tampa Bay area we have over 13,000 applicants on a waiting list for affordable housing. 

Affordable housing not only has to be affordable, but it also has 

to be available. And FSS has been probably one of the more premier programs because not only does it allow them to develop, over 

time of course, their home ownership, but it instills in them a 

sense of dignity, a sense of dignity in family, a sense of dignity in 

success of what they have been able to accomplish, achieve, and 

own. 

And so for that reason, the Tampa Bay Housing Authority went 

back to HUD and asked them if they could expand the program. 

And I was told that unfortunately HUD informed them they were 

not allowed to do so and provided little explanation for that. 

My first question is, have any of you experienced similar situations with HUD in trying to expand the FSS programs? Who would 

like to start? 

Yes, sir, Mr. Lubell? 

Mr. LUBELL. Yes. If I may? My understanding is that any housing authority that wants to expand its program is absolutely free 

to do so. In order to do that, they simply have to revise their FSS 

action plan and submit it to HUD. The question is whether they 

can get funding for the FSS coordinators that run the program, 

which is different from being able to operate the program. 

So there are two things. They could expand it very easily by submitting the revised action plan. But the problem is, that funding 

has been level for many years and their first priority has generally 

been provided to the agencies that are currently running it so that 

they can continue to serve people throughout the course of their 5- 

year period. 

So in order to provide additional funding for more agencies there 

would need to be an overall lift of the cap in funding provided. I 

know that is not your job. You are the authorizers— 

Mr. ROSS. Right. 

13 

Mr. LUBELL. —but I am just explaining, I think, what the issue 

might be. 

Mr. ROSS. I appreciate that. Anyone else? 

Mr. Spann? 

Mr. SPANN. Sure. I certainly agree with, Mr. Lubell. It is completely that. I would also add, though, that there is a funding formula. And so the challenge becomes, again, the number of persons 

who are registered participants versus quality of actual engagement. 

The truth of the matter is, we opted for quality of engagement 

so that once someone actually ascends and graduates from our program, that individual is able to support his or her family— 

Mr. ROSS. I think that is the point there. If we are looking at 

scoring this for increased funding and to make sure that we can 

afford to do this, we have to look at the outcomes. And Mr. Spann, 

I think you hit on that in that funding formula. 

And I guess the question would be, at what point do we see the 

rate of return to HUD with regard to the participation in the program as these participants move on? And I guess the best way to 

quantify that is, what is the success rate? 

I know you talked about having some 923 graduates in your program, or 938 graduates so far. How does that compare to those who 

have not made it? If you were to ratio this, is it a 70 percent success rate, 50 percent, or can you quantify that? 

Mr. SPANN. It is generally going to be somewhere in the 30 percent rate of success, maybe a little higher than— 

Mr. ROSS. 30 percent? 

Mr. SPANN. Around 30 percent. 

Mr. ROSS. Okay. 

Mr. SPANN. But again, our program is different from other programs. So there is no—this sort of comparative thing is important. 

It is helpful, however— 

Mr. ROSS. And do most of them want to help themselves? In 

other words, I would think that the first step to success is wanting 

to help yourself, and, I guess that could also be an impediment if 

they don’t. And that would impair your ability to be successful. 

Mr. SPANN. I don’t think this is really a question of whether or 

not individuals and families want to help themselves. I think every 

single customer we serve wants to help himself, herself, or her family. The issue is that life is happening while they are doing this. 

Mr. ROSS. Right. And Ms. Riva, I think you mentioned that that 

becomes a scenario for Compass. You teach these life skills. You 

teach the financial planning. You teach the ability to see the success of their incremental savings and create the escrow accounts. 

And I am not suggesting that they don’t want to be successful. 

I understand the outside influences, but it requires a good coach. 

It requires a good counselor. 

And I guess, Ms. Riva, you mentioned in your testimony that, 

‘‘You should include individualized, client-driven financial coaching 

and education to help participants chart and follow a path, to reach 

their financeable goals, and become more financially secure.’’ 

I am hurrying, because I am running out of time here. Is your 

program in addition to or greater than what is being required of 

FSS? 

14 

Ms. RIVA. In the Compass model, coaches are essentially taking 

the place of coordinators and integrating this coaching-driven 

model. But there is no reason why a public housing authority can’t 

integrate coaching and education. It could be through community 

partnerships— 

Mr. ROSS. And even hereafter, even after they have had their escrow invested, bought their homes, is their follow up such as— 

Ms. RIVA. Yes. 

Mr. ROSS. —see how that is the important thing. 

Ms. RIVA. Yes. 

Mr. ROSS. Okay. Thank you. I see my time has expired, and now 

I will recognize Mr. Kihuen for 5 minutes for questioning. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking 

Member Cleaver. And thank you all for being here to testify and 

for being here as witnesses. Just 2 weeks ago, there was an article 

published in one of our local newspapers talking about the success 

of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program that was run by the Southern Nevada Housing Authority. 

Taquana Edwards is quoted saying that she, ‘‘loves paying her 

bills on time,’’ which is a sentiment that sounds funny until you 

live in a situation where paying bills becomes a major point of 

stress. 

So I just have two questions, and I think anybody can answer 

these. First, why don’t more people participate in the FSS program? And second, do you think that many more people would participate if agencies and owners had access to increased funding to 

hire more coordinators in order to open enrollment? 

Ms. RIVA. I would be happy to start answering that question. So 

the first question is one of the reasons more families don’t participate is limited coordinator dollars so that naturally, the FSS Coordinator Grant naturally keeps the program small. 

At Compass, with our public housing authority partners and our 

nonprofit housing partners, we have actually leveraged philanthropic investment to prove that families want to work and they 

want to get ahead, which is how we have gotten to enrollment 

rates as high as 65 percent at some of the properties where we are 

working in partnership with POAH. It’s really important to emphasize that low enrollment rates are not a reflection of families’ desire 

to move forward. 

And then the second thing I would emphasize is the outreach 

and marketing in the program is something historically we have 

felt could always be strengthened, and to be marketing to people’s 

hopes and aspirations, not to compliance, and not to the rules of 

the program because people are afraid, they are already afraid. 

And so a lot of the work we have done with Compass that we 

are sharing with PHAs through our national network is leading 

with aspiration and watching how that drives enrollment in the 

program. 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. Can I just add to that? I think what we have 

seen and why we have a higher enrollment rate is the engagement 

of our property management staff on the site, the entire team, not 

just the property management staff, but the maintenance. 

15 

In fact, the maintenance staff have helped in recruitment of families. Those are the people who are interacting with these families 

every single day. They know them best. 

And then when you combine that with the financial coaching, it 

is very powerful in terms of really trying to recruit families into the 

program and then sustaining them going forward. And I think having some additional funding over time could certainly help get more 

organizations more actively involved and really scale up the program. And that is what we need to do in the months and years 

ahead. 

Ms. SIGLIN. And I would like to just add that POAH raised private funds. They used some retained earnings from other parts of 

their rental portfolio and raised private philanthropic money to pay 

for the coordinator. Not all organizations can do that. 

So as so many improvements have been made in recent years in 

FSS, if we really want to scale it up, you have to look at the funding. Thank you. 

Mr. KIHUEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the remainder of my time. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman 

from Michigan, Mr. Trott. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate all of you being here. My research indicates that the 

appropriation is about $75 million a year. And just so I understand 

the program—and frankly, I don’t know a whole lot about it, so I 

sure appreciate you being here—is the $75 million largely used for 

grants for the coordinators and then also then also to fund the escrow? Anyone can answer my questions; they are general questions. 

Mr. LUBELL. It is used entirely to fund the coordinators. The escrow is funded separately out of the normal subsidy formula for the 

three main rental systems programs. 

Mr. TROTT. Okay. And someone mentioned that roughly 72,000 

people a year participate. How many people graduate, would you 

say, annually? 

Mr. LUBELL. It is around 30 percent of program participants who 

end up graduating. But I want to emphasize— 

Mr. TROTT. It is a multi-year— 

Mr. LUBELL. It is a 5-to 7-year program, so— 

Mr. TROTT. Right. 

Mr. LUBELL. —if you looked at any given cohort, roughly 30 percent graduate, but I want to emphasize a couple of things. One is 

that even if you don’t graduate, people can benefit from the program because they are getting coaching. They are finding jobs. 

Keep in mind that unlike other programs, if you decide, for example, to move in with a boyfriend and you are no longer on public 

housing, you have to leave the program because you have to be in 

subsidized housing. 

Mr. TROTT. Right. 

Mr. LUBELL. So some people who don’t graduate actually have 

positive outcomes today. Some have negative. I don’t want to say 

this program works for everyone. 

Mr. TROTT. Right. 

16 

Mr. LUBELL. And I do think that some emphasis on improving 

graduation rates would be good, but that responds to your questions. 

Mr. TROTT. Great. And that does respond. Kind of along the 

same lines, the benefits of the program, independent of graduating 

and getting escrow, someone mentioned, help them make that leap, 

I think it was Ms. Siglin? 

What is the biggest challenge, if you could each—is it transportation, housing, increase in salary, life? What would you say the— 

Mr. SPANN. I think it is the entirety of it. It is all of that and 

then some. We are meeting—so we are a housing authority. We are 

housers every single day and so we are meeting folks where they 

are to provide that service, and it is an entire continuum. This 

isn’t—while there are beginning and end points, it is a continuum 

that, frankly, has steps. 

And I think the rigor of just life itself in addition to something 

else is quite a bit. The other part is you have to remember these 

are customers who are essentially laying their souls bare to a confidant. 

Mr. TROTT. Right. 

Mr. SPANN. And that is incredibly personal work. Most of America doesn’t do that work. So doing that over a 5-year period is incredibly difficult. And a 30 percent graduation rate really is substantial given, frankly, the very small resource allotment to it. 

Mr. TROTT. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Ms. Riva, you just told the story about Tanya, I believe, and her 

dream to own a home. Have any of you worked with the private 

sector in terms of mortgage lenders and to help facilitate and make 

that goal more attainable? Is that part of what you— 

Ms. RIVA. Absolutely, yes. 

Mr. TROTT. So they would be clearly independent of this program— 

Ms. RIVA. Yes. 

Mr. TROTT. —but that would be the logical step for some of these 

folks, right? 

Ms. RIVA. Absolutely. And the original statute for FSS really positions it as a program designed to take advantage of those partnerships in the community. And so in the markets that we are in, 

we are always working with affordable mortgage providers, building those relationships with banks around their CRA commitments. 

And I just want to mention on graduation, I think it is important. We are an earlier program at Compass, but we are tracking 

closer to 75 percent of our clients are graduating. And I also wanted to mention the HUD data as among graduates, 36 percent do 

exit subsidized housing. So I think that it is an important piece. 

Mr. TROTT. Yes. 

Ms. RIVA. Not all families get to that point at the same moment, 

and exiting isn’t right for everybody at 5 years, but families are 

making progress on that path to financial security. 

Mr. TROTT. Great. 

Ms. RIVA. It’s just important to point out those statistics as well. 

Mr. TROTT. And maybe another dumb question here, but $75 million, how many coordinators are there, if you had to estimate? And 

how big is the caseload for a coordinator? 

17 

Mr. LUBELL. HUD has a standard that the caseload should be at 

least 50 per full-time coordinator— 

Mr. TROTT. Okay. 

Mr. LUBELL. —although the first coordinator can be 25 because 

they have other responsibilities like running the program. Some 

agencies routinely have higher caseloads and are trying to be more 

efficient. And I would say compared with other programs, this program is pretty efficient in terms of the number of people who are 

being served per coordinator. 

Mr. TROTT. I am almost out of time, so I have to ask one last 

question. Any concerns regarding fraud and abuse in the program, 

maybe coordinators that really don’t have the families’ best interest 

and any concerns that we should be focused on to try and improve 

the integrity of the program? 

Mr. LUBELL. Not that we are aware. Not that I am aware of. 

Mr. TROTT. Okay. I am out of time. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

And my one other comment is, it would be interesting to have 

a coordinator here testifying. That would be a great addition to the 

panel. Thank you again for being here. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you. And the gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Gonzalez, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is for Mr. Spann. Mr. Spann, in Montgomery County, Mary- land, a person needs to earn more than $33 an hour just to be able 

to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment in that fair market rate. 

That means that someone earning minimum wage would have to 

work 145 hours a week—more than 3 times the minimum wage 

you mentioned in your testimony. While the average annual earned income of $37,393 by your clients is a tremendous personal milestone, that is a far cry from full 

economic self-sufficiency, especially in an area where the median 

income for a family of 4 is $110,304. 

Based on this data, it is clear that families need better job opportunities that pay much more than the minimum wage to become 

self-sufficient. How can the FSS program help improve employment 

prospects beyond minimum wage positions? 

Mr. SPANN. Thank you. So further in the testimony and, frankly, 

even prior to that, we talk about the actual continuum itself. And 

so this is not simply a matter of financial coaching. This is not simply a matter of finding someone a minimum wage job. 

It also includes a great deal of workforce training in addition to 

educational opportunities. And this is about how we meet a family 

who is a participant in FSS with the entire basket of HOC services. 

And so for us, that is exactly the mission: How do we close the 

gap between that livable wage in Montgomery County and what 

some of our graduates are making? And that is the average number that you are getting. So we do have some graduates who, 

frankly, are at a higher level. 

But the fact of the matter is, average, many of them are right 

there. And so what we have seen in tremendous success is attaching folks to those educational opportunities that then help for career advancement, but also allow for career advancement, offering 

summer opportunities to not just the high school students, but 

18 

those college students of families who are participants in not just 

FSS, but all of our programs, and making sure we have linkages 

with partners who are committed to this work. 

Many of these folks are working with Compass. We happen not 

to be working with Compass. But we have actually found partnerships throughout the Montgomery County Government and in the 

nonprofit sector in Maryland. 

And so let me just offer you one of the best testaments of how 

successful this program can be, is that this audience is not filled 

with participants because they are at work. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Fair enough. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. ROSS. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. 

Rothfus, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My first question is for Ms. Riva. This subcommittee has been 

looking at a number of HUD programs and considering their effectiveness and uniqueness. As I looked at this program, I wondered 

whether the goals of FSS could be achieved absent the program. 

Could you please talk about whether housing authorities would be 

able to deliver the FSS-type services and outcomes without the program? 

Ms. RIVA. Thank you for your question. As I mentioned in my 

oral testimony, we think what is unique about the bundle that FSS 

provides is the combination of affordable housing, one-on-one support and service coordination for residents, and the savings account. And where we sit at Compass in the asset building space is 

a belief that assets and wealth really matter in helping families 

move forward. 

So there are other programs and other important programs that 

HUD runs that support residents and need to stay in place. What 

is unique about FSS is this bundle of promoting work, promoting 

savings, and providing support one-on-one to residents to help 

them to do that. 

It is unique among anti-poverty programs in this Nation and it 

is actually the largest asset-building program we have for low-income families in the United States. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. So is the asset-building part that is unique, for example, and maybe anybody on the panel can address this, too? The 

synergies that this program might have with, for example, the 

Moving to Work program, can anybody speak to that? 

Mr. LUBELL. Yes, I can speak to that. Thank you for your question. One of the nice things about FSS is that it is open to all housing authorities. And it is really one of the only ways to provide a 

financial incentive for families to increase their earnings that is 

available to them. And so that is one of the important things. 

The Moving to Work program gives greater flexibility to adapt 

program rules, and there have been a number of agencies that 

have taken advantage of that to really experiment with different 

approaches including variations on the FSS program. 

Cambridge, which is one of the agencies where Ms. Riva works, 

has experimented with a different model that they think can allow 

them to expand FSS to a much larger group of people 

19 

The Portland Housing Authority in Oregon is doing something 

similar. So while I think the nice thing about MTW is it gives the 

flexibility, but it is only available to a smaller number of agencies, 

so FSS is an important thing that is available to everyone. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. Thank you. And if I could say with—go ahead— 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. I was just going to say that we view FSS as a 

component in broader program offerings under we call a Financial 

Opportunity Center. And that is what we launched in Independence, Missouri, where you have FSS, you have a college savings 

program, you have job training employment, you have educational 

programs, various other social services programs, childcare, and it 

really helps to get people engaged by having that financial incentive in FSS. 

But they are taking advantage of a broad array of programs. So 

we don’t view FSS in isolation of the broader array of offerings and 

opportunities that may be available for low-income families. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. If I could go back to Mr. Lubell for a minute, I 

want to talk a little bit about self-sufficiency as a goal. When I 

speak with public housing advocates, I often ask them what their 

metric for success is, and I happen to believe that self-sufficiency 

should be the chief metric that we try to meet, at least for ablebodied adults. 

I think that this is the moral approach, and I worry that we are 

failing the American people when we create the conditions that 

allow multiple generations of a family to remain in poverty and dependency. 

Naturally, a program like FSS seems like it could be an attractive way to meet this goal of self-sufficiency. Though the program 

is still being studied, I understand that it has already demonstrated some outcomes that are positive on net. If the program 

proves effective, should we consider making participation mandatory for all able-bodied adults? 

Mr. LUBELL. It is an excellent question, and it is one that may 

be difficult to answer in 1 minute as you might expect. But I would 

say a few things about that. 

First of all, I would agree that there is very strong early evidence 

from FSS of success. We just completed an evaluation that found 

earnings, gains, and improvements in credit scores, reductions in 

debt, and a lot of positive outcomes. 

But I should stress that FSS in the way it is set up and the way 

it is funded is funded to work with people who volunteer to be in 

the program. These are more motivated people. 

So if you were to expand it to other people who are not necessarily motivated, the question I would ask is, what would that 

do to FSS in terms of the number of people who would be served, 

in terms of the type of program model that we need to reach those 

people? 

And I would say that if we made it mandatory and we did not 

substantially increase the funding so we could provide coordinators 

to deal with the thousands and millions of additional people who 

are joining, then we would actually dilute the effectiveness of the 

program rather than improve it. 

So I would just urge the committee if they are thinking about 

that to think about the implications both for the amount of funding 

20 

that is really needed to make the program work, but also the service model. 

You might not be able to serve 50 families. You might be able 

to serve 20 families with a coordinator, because you are going to 

have to work with them a lot more intensely. And so I would say 

we just don’t have experience with that right now. 

What we have experience with is a program that is designed to 

help people who want to move ahead get ahead. And we could 

serve a lot more people today even with that same model if we really sort of promoted the program more and provided a little more 

money. So I hope that is a helpful answer to your question. 

Mr. ROTHFUS. That is great. 

I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. TROTT [presiding]. The gentlewoman from Ohio is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. BEATTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 

ranking member, and let me just say to all the panelists today how 

much I appreciate you being here, not only for your expertise in the 

area, because it is always great to have people who have actually 

worked in and lived what we are talking about versus just speculating on it, but more importantly than that, this has been a great 

committee hearing. It took us a little time to get here, but the interesting thing is we appear to all be somewhat on the same page, 

and that is very comforting when you can sit here and nod your 

head with some of the questions on the other side of the aisle. 

So I wanted to interject that for the record so we can remember 

that when we have other housing programs that come or maybe we 

should just bring you all back on whatever the topics are. 

[laughter] 

I am a long-time public housing person, some 20 years as a consultant, and oftentimes we don’t give enough attention to the 

smaller programs. 

But one of the things I can remember from my early years in 

working in public housing is we always talked about the ultimate 

goal being self-sufficiency or being self-reliant. And being able to 

have a program like this is very welcoming because, certainly, my 

time in public housing was long before when President Bush initiated this program. 

But I am big on partnerships because, obviously, we aren’t in a 

position it appears to double the funding that you could get, but 

I think you can grow programs and grow your expertise in a lot of 

ways. 

And so one of the things I was reading, because I am from Columbus, Ohio, is that our Metropolitan Housing Authority talked 

about some of the partnerships with Fifth Third Bank, with Catholic Social Services, and even Sherwin Williams Paint stores. 

So I guess I wanted, Mr. Spann or Ms. Riva, to get your opinion 

about how partnerships would work? Very briefly, because then I 

have one other question. Either one of you can start. 

Mr. SPANN. Sure. The partnerships are absolutely key, and for 

us, this is about us being as an agency a member of a vibrant, 

functioning community, and so are the folks we serve. And as a 

consequence of that, our partners in other business for the housing 

21 

authority are also our partners as we go on to support folks as they 

work through the FSS continuum. 

So it is incredibly vital to what we do. And the truth of the matter is we would not be able to connect people responsibly to housing 

or a career or even education pathways without them. 

Mrs. BEATTY. And don’t you think that it is important that corporate America sees or gets a truer picture of how individuals who 

live in public housing might be economically deprived, but it 

doesn’t mean that they are challenged academically or in the world 

of work if given an opportunity? 

I am going to take your nod as a ‘‘yes,’’ and I am going to go to 

the next question for anyone to answer. We talked a lot about outcomes and metrics and how we can be more accountable. And I am 

in full support of that because the ultimate goal I think that you 

have is the same as it is for me. 

So can anyone tell me how you are evaluating the outcomes? I 

have read some of the studies. That study that talks about credit 

rate, scores going up, talking about savings going up. 

Is that the only one, or are there other ways that you monitor, 

evaluate? Because that is what my colleagues are going to ask me 

when we start talking about this program and others. How do you 

prove that it is working? 

Ms. RIVA. I am happy— 

Mrs. BEATTY. You get 10 seconds apiece if everybody— 

Ms. RIVA. Yes, so 10 seconds for Compass. So we are—our discipline around data collection we think it is really important in 

doing this work. And we look at our outcomes across five main 

measures, changes in earnings, changes in credit score. And debt 

credit is a tool that is a piece of economic mobility. 

Access to quality financial products, which is where banks are 

coming in, increases in savings, and then a fifth is a qualitative 

measure which is people’s overall sense of confidence and wellbeing. It really matters to keep marching forward on that path to 

economic opportunity. 

That is how we do it at Compass. I think historically, at HUD, 

outcomes have focused primarily around graduation, home ownership rate, and exit rates. And in the last year or two, working particularly with Abt, HUD is looking at and introducing stronger performance-based measures, which we are excited about and think 

will also help to improve the program. 

Mrs. BEATTY. Thank you. 

Mr. TROTT. The gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Luetkemeyer, is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a few quick questions here. How do the individuals qualify 

for the program? Do they come to you? Do you recruit them? Put 

an ad in the newspaper? Do the folks who manage the facilities go 

down the road and knock on doors? Or how does this all work? 

Mr. SPANN. It is sort of a ‘‘yes-and’’ for us. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I’m sorry? 

Mr. SPANN. Yes, and more. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. 

Mr. SPANN. Absolutely it is. So it is voluntary. The program is 

voluntary. 

22 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Right. 

Mr. SPANN. So persons are choosing to be a part of it. They are 

doing so— 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Do you sort of pre-screen them, though, when 

somebody comes in and say, hey, I heard about this great program. 

I would like to try and qualify for it. And you sit down and you 

work through an application on it? And do some people not qualify? 

Mr. SPANN. What we work through is an assessment. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay, an assessment. 

Mr. SPANN. And so that assessment is really to determine where 

people are in their own journey. But are folks disqualified as a consequence of something other than being out of compliance in another program? No. 

If an individual is out of compliance in, say, the voucher program 

or the public housing program, then certainly it is possible that 

person might not be able to participate. However, generally you 

won’t have persons who are out of compliance volunteering themselves. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. We also do a combination of one-on-one outreach 

with each of our residents, group workshops, information sessions. 

When people move in we go over the importance of the program 

and hope that they consider it. So at all different touch points, recertification, all— 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. When do you recertify, once a year? 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. Yes. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. What happens if an individual—you 

said they just moved in, what happens if the person moves away? 

Are they able to keep this program? Does it follow them or do they 

have to move to a facility that has a coordinator? 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. As long as they are in compliance with the program they can take their escrow amount with them. And if they 

move into another assisted property or public housing where there 

is an FSS program they can continue it there. I believe that is the 

case. If you want to clarify that? 

Mr. LUBELL. Yes, it is more or less correct, but if they leave subsidized housing they are no longer in the program. And that is one 

of the things that is tied to being in the program and people do 

leave subsidized housing for a range of reasons. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Right, but if they went to another facility 

that they would qualify for they could— 

Mr. LUBELL. Yes. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. —continue the program and they— 

Mr. LUBELL. They could continue. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. As long as that facility had a coordinator, I 

assume? Or the coordinator from the past facility would be eligible 

or able to take them on and continue with them if they move from 

different cities, right, for instance? 

Ms. SIGLIN. One of the things that has happened with the recent 

expansion of FSS to project-based rental assistance is public housing projects are converting under the RAD program to become 

project-based Section 8. So when that happens, the residents are 

protected now that FSS has been temporarily expanded to projectVerDate Nov 24 2008 17:18 May 15, 2018 Jkt 029709 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 K:\DOCS\29709.TXT TERI
23 

based. So the resident who is accumulating escrow in public housing can continue to do so. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. If you look at the recent flooding, you have 

people who perhaps were in a situation where their facility was 

flooded out and they have to go someplace else. So, my question is, 

if those folks could continue on in some other facility? 

Is there some sort of oversight or accountability for the funds, the $75 million roughly? Do you have an auditor come in and double-check to make sure that whomever you are designating as the 

coordinator, that they are doing their job? What sort of oversight 

is there? 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. We are self-funding the program and so we are 

not eligible for the coordinator funds. So we are not being audited 

in that sense from HUD. However— 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So you have your own self-coordinated 

funder, or self-funded coordinator? 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. Self-funded, correct. However, we have plans of 

actions approved by HUD and then we have regular reporting to 

HUD with regard to each family and the escrow accounts. So there 

is significant oversight by HUD, even though we are not getting direct funding from them. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. How often do you report to them, once a 

month, once a quarter, once a year? 

Mr. GORNSTEIN. I believe it is quarterly. 

Mr. LUBELL. Yes. And HUD is also in the process of adopting a 

performance measurement system, so all housing authority FSS 

programs that are funded by HUD will be assessed on a series of 

metrics. That is what we do— 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Is that a cost-benefit analysis? Is that what 

you are talking about? 

Mr. LUBELL. I’m sorry? 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Is it a cost-benefit analysis? 

Mr. LUBELL. No. It is an analysis that looks at outcomes. It looks 

at the extent to which families’ earnings have gone up relative to 

other families in the same housing authority. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. 

Mr. LUBELL. It looks at the graduation rate and it looks at the 

number of people who are being served. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So a while ago when you were in your opening statement, or maybe you were responding to somebody else 

here, you made a statement that because the program hasn’t been 

in place long enough and you haven’t had a baseline to compare 

against, you are not sure how effective it is. 

But it would appear that you are doing great, I would assume? 

That is your conclusion that— 

Mr. LUBELL. Who is doing great? I’m sorry? 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. The folks involved in the program—there 

seems to be a substantial graduation rate from it, which is great, 

but there—you made a comment I think to the effect that you 

didn’t have a baseline to compare or a control group— 

Mr. LUBELL. Oh, I’m sorry. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. —to compare against. Is that— 

Mr. LUBELL. Yes. Let me clarify. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. And maybe I am not— 

24 

Mr. LUBELL. I apologize if I was—the program has been around 

for 25 years, so we have a lot of data. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Right. 

Mr. LUBELL. And the issue was that the particular evaluation— 

HUD’s first two program evaluations tracked families over time, 

but they did not have a comparison group to compare them to and 

therefore were not able to make a definitive statement about the 

impact of a program. 

The most recent study that we did of Compass, for example, did 

have a comparison group. We were able to compare the outcomes 

against the comparison group and therefore be able to say something meaningful about the program’s positive impact. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. My time has expired. I yield back. 

Mr. TROTT. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. 

Cleaver, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you. Let me first of all, again, thank all of 

you for being here. 

Mr. Spann, we did try to get two of your residents to be here 

today, but we were delighted that they could not come because they 

couldn’t take off work. 

And let me also just say, as a former resident of public housing, 

and as a mayor who appointed the housing authority and had oversight of it, and Independence is in my district, as is Marshall and 

Kansas City where this program has worked, this is a good program and it is working well. 

One of my regrets is that we want this program and other things 

like it to be incentives to the residents, but it also ought to be an 

incentive for us to invest more money in the program. 

You hear a lot about programs that don’t work, but I have not 

heard a single Member here today make a negative comment about 

the workability of this program. I have experientially seen it work. 

All of you have, and my hope, my goal, would be to somehow convince this committee and maybe even the Secretary that when we 

have a program like this introduced by somebody who was from a 

different party than me, I could care less whether he was a member of the Oakland Raiders. All I want is a program to work. 

And this is working, and I am going to support it and give President Bush the credit for the wisdom for putting it in place. 

Now, one of the things that I would—I had a lot of questions that 

I wanted to ask you, and some of them I already knew the answer 

to, but I wanted to get you on record. But somebody was asked a 

question about fraud and abuse, and we are, obviously—I guess we 

are the oversight committee so people we are supposed to be concerned about that. 

But to my knowledge, as of today at 10 minutes after 4:00, that 

has not been, there has not been any Federal investigation or 

charge against the program for any kind of fraud or abuse. Am I 

wrong? 

Mr. LUBELL. I don’t think any of us are aware of any such investigation, sir. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Yes. I know the answer, but the point I am trying 

to make is why in the world don’t we celebrate this program by 

saying, look, if we can get 30 or 35 percent success and invest more 

25 

money to bring it up to 60 percent, why not do it and just sing hallelujah or whatever you sing at church? 

But this is a program to celebrate. And I am hoping that all of 

you feel good about the fact that that it has been successful and 

you played a role. 

Somebody mentioned the Fatherhood Initiative. Mr. Spann, can 

you just go into a little detail on that, please? 

Mr. SPANN. Certainly. The Department of Health and Human 

Services has a father initiative, a grant. We are maybe one of two 

housing authorities to apply for and receive that funding, and what 

we have decided to do is include it in our suite of HOC Academy 

and resident services, along with partnering with the FSS program 

so that there are fathers who are identified and supported. 

And again, we are matching them as quickly and as deliberately 

as we can to workforce opportunities, to workforce readiness opportunities, educational opportunities and the like so that we have fathers supported in our community who are present in their children’s lives and active and so forth. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Let me close out by saying I would argue that the 

success numbers are higher than what we officially report. And the 

reason for this is that proximity breeds imitation. 

Somebody in a neighborhood that is rundown paints their home, 

and you look up the next Saturday and people down the street are 

painting their home. The same thing happens in public housing. I 

saw it. I know what happens. 

Or somebody decides to get married. We don’t consider that a 

success, in spite of the fact that they get married, they go on and 

have a successful marriage and raise children and work and so 

forth. So I think the success rate is actually higher than we report, 

than the data would report. 

So let me thank you all very much for your testimony, and I appreciate the fact that our Chair put this on the agenda. 

Mr. TROTT. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

I don’t believe there are any more Members who have questions, 

and we have a vote series coming up shortly, so I think that is part 

of the reason. But I want to thank everyone again for being here. 

And I have to agree with Mrs. Beatty. I believe that this hearing 

has been particularly productive and informative. And I also want 

to thank all of you for everything you do in your communities. You 

clearly make a big difference, and we appreciate it. 

The Chair notes that some Members may have additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to submit in writing. 

Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days to submit extraneous 

materials to the Chair for inclusion in the record. 

Without objection, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:18 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(27) 

A P P E N D I X 

September 27, 2017 

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29709.001

Testimony of Aaron Gornstein 

President and CEO, Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. 

Submitted to: 

United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Financial Services 

Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance 

Hearing: 

Overview of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program 

September 27, 2017 

Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the Family Self-Sufficiency 

Program. 

I am Aaron Gornstein, and I serve as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Preservation 

of Affordable Housing, Inc. (POAH), a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to 

preserve. create and sustain affordable, healthy homes that support economic security and access 

to opportunity for all. Since its founding in 200 I, POAH has successfully preserved or built 

more than 9,000 units of affordable rental housing in 9 states and the District of Columbia, 

providing affordable homes for almost 15,000 Americans. 

At POAH we believe that access to affordable, safe and healthy housing is a crucial step in 

overcoming the challenge of poverty, but we know that housing is only one part of the solution. 

By itself, stable affordable housing has significant positive impacts on life outcomes for children, 

adults and seniors across a range of outcome areas. POAH is committed to multiplying those 

positive impacts by using our housing as a platform for the delivery of evidence-based 

supportive services and resources targeted to residents' needs like onsite after-school to boost 

educational achievement; nursing visits to help residents age in place; or job training and credit 

building to help residents increase earnings and assets. 

That is why POAH is one of the very first private owners ofHUD-assisted affordable housing to 

adopt the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program. Prior to the extension ofFSS eligibility to 

residents of privately owned properties with Project Based Rental Assistance (PBRA), POAH 

saw in the FSS program an effective framework to help residents increase earnings, grow 

savings, and reduce dependency on public assistance. POAH supported the extension ofFSS to 

PBRA properties in the FY2015 Appropriations Act, and moved quickly to use this new 

authority by partnering with Compass Working Capital to launch FSS programs at four POAH 

communities in 2015, growing to seven active FSS sites in four states as of September 2017. 

POAH's FSS program is relatively new our longest-enrolled households are only about 18 

months into their five-year contracts of participation, and our newest FSS site just launched in 

August 2017- but the program's early results are extremely encouraging. As of mid-September, 

our first five FSS sites have enrolled 109 households, which represents 30% of households that 
29 


29709.002

are work-eligible and are eligible for the FSS escrow. At one of our original fSS sites, 65% of 

target households are engaged and working toward earnings and savings goals. Across our first 

five FSS sites, we've already seen an average 14% increase in earned income since enrollmentmore than half of enrolled households have increased their incomes and begun depositing 

savings in their FSS escrow accounts, with an average of$1,280 saved. Overall, the percentage 

of participating households who are employed has increased by 19%, against the baseline at 

enrollment. And in our first 18 months, we have already had three households graduate from the 

program by reaching their self-sufficiency goals and ending receipt of welfare assistance. All 

three of those early graduates have also moved on from our properties- one bought a home 

freeing up affordable units in our communities for the next families who need them. 

We are excited about these early outcomes, but the numbers only tell part of the story. The 

stories we are hearing about the program's impact on participating families are, if anything, even 

more powerful than the performance statistics. For example (names changed to protect resident 

privacy): 

• Lisa. Roberto and their daughter (age 8) have lived in a HUD-assisted POAH community 

in Providence, Rl, for ten years. They were one of the .first families to join the FSS 

program when POAH began offering the program to residents. When they enrolled, Lisa 

wasn't able to work due to health issues, and Roberto was working several part time 

jobs. Their annual earned income was just over $8,000. After joining the program, Lisa 

began taking classes at the local community college to pursue a career in healthcare. 

Roberto got a permanent, full-time job with better pay and stronger benefits. They've 

increased their annual income by more than $15,000, and begun to build savings in the 

program account. They plan to use those savings to eventually buy their own home. Lisa 

has been a strong advocate for FSS at her property and has encouraged several other 

families to enroll. Since joining FSS, Lisa hasfound ways to reduce her family's monthly 

expenses and actively shares money savings tips through an online blog. 

• Rochelle is a single mom to two girls. ages 7 and 1. She enrolled in the FSS Program in 

May 2016, right when she moved into a HUD-assisted POAH community in North 

Kingstown, RI. At enrollment, Rochelle was on maternity leave from a part-time, 

minimum wage job. She had $2.18 in her checking account and no savings. After only 10 

months in the FSS program, Rochelle has made some major changes to her family's 

.financial situation. She moved to a full-time position with benefits at a company where 

she feels she can grow professionally and excel. Within a few months at that new job she 

received two raises and a promotion. She opened a retirement account through her 

employer, set up direct deposit into her savings account (which now has a balance of 

$1,100), and opened a 529 college savings accountfor her newborn through Rhode 

Island's CollegeBoundBaby program. She has increased her annual income by $25,000, 

reduced her debt by $5,000 and saved $4,416 in her FSS escrow account. With her 

escrow funds, she plans to open an additional 529 account for her other daughter, pay off 

the remainder of her debt and save the remaining amount as an emergency fund. 

Building on these successes, in 2017 POAH is launching new FSS sites in Independence, 

Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; Hartford, Connecticut; and Hyannis, Massachusetts. This will bring 

2 
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29709.003

our total number of eligible households in I'SS across all sites to just under 1, I 00, and we expect 

that we will expand further next year. 

POAH attributes the success of its FSS program to a number of key factors- each of which is 

either built in to the basic FSS model, or readily replicable by other owners: 

!. First, POAH's FSS program is implemented at the site level by committed and welltrained property managers and an extremely effective service partner with expertise in 

financial education and asset building. In lieu of the traditional service referral and case 

management model, Compass Working Capital's FSS model centers on individualized, 

client-driven financial coaching, provided by highly trained coaches with support from a 

centralized team of content experts. Many PBRA-assisted households face multiple 

barriers to economic success, and while the FSS escrow is a crucial incentive, it must be 

paired with effective, sustained coaching and support for these households to be 

successful in overcoming the challenges they often face. 

2. Second, POAH's FSS program uses a site-based service modeL allowing participants to 

access financial coaching, workshops, and other resources where they live. Our FSS 

participants are often managing numerous demands on their time- multiple jobs, 

childrens' education and childcare needs, and other responsibilities and our experience 

suggests that providing convenient onsite access to resources has a very significant 

positive impact on participation rates, compared to the offsite service provision that is 

more typical for FSS programs for public housing or voucher-assisted households. 

3. Third, HUD's FSS team has been fully committed to making the expansion ofFSS to 

PBRA-assisted properties a success, and has worked hard to support our new FSS sites. 

We have greatly appreciated the efficient approvals for our plans of action at each new 

site. We also applaud HUD for teaming up with Abt Associates to provide "FSS best 

practices" training and resource materials for FSS providers. 

POAH's experience operating the I'SS program at its PBRA-assisted communities also suggests 

a number of opportunities to further strengthen the program's effectiveness: 

J. HUD's authority to extend the FSS program to PBRA-assisted properties was included in 

the FY15 Appropriations Act, and has fortunately been included in successive 

appropriations bills (or continuing resolutions) since that time. The lack of permanent 

authority for FSS at PBRA-assisted communities means that owners like POAH face the 

risk that their authority to offer the FSS program may lapse in any year, leaving them 

unable to deliver on the commitments they have made to participating families (which are 

enshrined in five-year ··contracts of participation"). We have heard that this uncertainty 

has kept other owners on the sidelines, hesitant to invest in developing FSS programs and 

to make commitments to residents which they could be forced to abandon if the authority 

lapses. We are hopeful that the Congress will act to address this set of challenges by 

creating permanent authority for FSS in PBRA-assisted properties. 

3 
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29709.004

2. The original statutory language for FSS includes ambiguous instructions for calculating 

FSS escrow deposits for households between 50% and 80% of Area Median Income 

(AMI), and HUD has resolved the uncertainty by barring escrow deposits for earnings 

growth above 50% AMI. Our early experience suggests that this limitation cuts off the 

FSS program's incentive well short of a "self-sufficient" income level, undermining the 

program's ability to help residents climb the last few rungs on the ladder to economic 

self-sufficiency and transition into the unassisted housing market. We would encourage 

Congress to clarify that the FSS escrow incentive should stay in place until a 

resident reaches HUD's "low-income" benchmark, 80% of AMI (consistent with 

what appea1-s to have been the original legislative intent), 

3. POAH has funded its FSS Program through its own corporate funds and private 

fundraising. As noted above, high-quality, sustained coaching and support is a crucial 

part of a successful, effective FSS program; the escrow incentive alone is not usually 

adequate to change residents' life trajectories. To encourage more private owners to 

participate we recommend that Congress consider, over time, providing some funds 

for FSS coordinators while ensuring that local housing authorities continue to 

receive adequate funding levels. 

POAH strongly supports 8.1344, the Family Self Sufficiency Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by 

Senators Blunt, Reed, Scott and Menendez, because it responds to each of the opportunities 

identified above, and makes a number of other enhancements that will help strengthen the FSS 

program. We hope the House will introduce legislation that mirrors these important provisions. 

In conclusion, I would reiterate POAH's conviction that the FSS program is a very promising 

tool that owners can use to help residents increase earnings, grow savings, and reduce 

dependency on public assistance. We would be pleased to work with the subcommittee in its 

efforts to further strengthen and expand the FSS program. Thank you once again for the 

opportunity to submit this testimony. I look forward to your questions. 

4 
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29709.005

Testimony of Jeffrey Lubell 

Director of Housing and Community Initiatives, Abt Associates, Inc. 

Submitted to: 

United States House of Representatives 

Committee on Financial Services 

Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance 

Hearing: 

Overview of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program 

September 27, 2017 

Good afternoon, Chairman DuffY, Ranking Member Cleaver, and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) 

Program. 

My name is Jeffrey Lubell and I am the Director of Housing and Community Initiatives for Abt 

Associates. Abt is a mission-driven research and consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that 

conducts program evaluations, performs research, and provides technical assistance and consulting 

services on a wide range of social programs. Among other areas, Abt' s work focuses on programs that 

provide affordable housing, help individuals build workforce skills and increa~e their earnings, and help 

individuals build assets and financial capability. 

My testimony today has three parts: 

A summary of my experience with FSS 

An overview of how FSS works 

An overview of the research evidence on FSS 

1. My Experience with FSS 

I have been conducting research and writing about FSS for nearly 20 years. Much of my work on FSS has 

been funded by philanthropic foundations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Oak 

Foundation. In the 2000s, I launched and ran a foundation-funded project called FSS Partnerships that 

sought to expand participation in FSS by encouraging partnerships between housing agencies and other 

organizations with compatible goals. Since joining Abt in 2013, I have worked on a number of research 

and technical assistance projects related to FSS funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development (HUD). My work for HUD has involved developing a guidebook and online training on 

promising practices for running an effective FSS program, assisting HUD in developing a process for 

measuring the performance ofPHA-administered FSS programs, and developing a guidebook and hosting 

webinars related to the multifamily FSS program. In addition, HUD's Office of Policy Development and 

Research has provided matching funding for research that l and my Abt colleagues conducted examining 

the performance ofFSS programs in Lynn and Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
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29709.006

2. How FSS Works 

FSS is a HUD program authorized by Congress in the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing 

Act of 1990. It is designed to help residents of subsidized rental housing make progress toward economic 

security by increasing their earnings and building assets. FSS has three main components: 

Stable, affordable housing provided through one ofthe following programs: Public Housing, 

the Housing Choice Voucher program, or the Project-Based Section 8 program. 

Case management or coaching to help participating families ("participants") achieve their 

career and financial goals. Among other things, the FSS case manager or coach helps 

participants develop goals and a plan describing how they will meet their goals; provides 

referrals for services participants may need to increase their earnings and overcome barriers to 

work or other goals; and meets regularly with participants to help tbem stay on track. 

An escrow account that grows as participants' earnings and rent increase. Like other 

residents of subsidized housing, participants in FSS generally pay 30 percent of their income for 

rent and utilities. In order to provide a financial incentive for FSS participants to increase their 

earnings, however, an amount generally equal to any increase in rent the FSS participant pays 

attributable to an increase in earnings is deposited into an FSS escrow account. FSS participants 

receive the escrowed funds if they successfully graduate from FSS. Local FSS programs also 

have discretion to allow participants to use escrowed funds on an interim basis if needed to help 

the participants achieve their goals. For example, some FSS participants use escrowed funds to 

repair a car they need to get to work. 

To graduate from FSS, a participant must achieve the goals that he or she pledges to achieve in a contract 

with the housing provider (known as an FSS Contract of Participation) and the attached Individual 

Training and Services Plan. In addition, participants wishing to graduate must be employed and not 

receiving TANF cash assistance. A participant has up to five years in which to achieve his or her goals; 

local FSS programs can approve extensions of up to two years for a total of seven years. 

FSS is a voluntary initiative in the sense that families have a choice about whether or not to participate. 

Some public housing agencies ("PHAs") are required to operate an FSS program based on a "mandate" 

associated with the receipt of new increments of housing assistance in the 1992-1998 period. PHAs that 

have satisfied their mandate and private owners of HUD-assisted multifamily housing with project-based 

Section 8 contracts have discretion to decide whether or not to offer an FSS program. 

According to the Congressional Justifications for HUD's FY 2018 budget, there are more than 72,000 

households enrolled in FSS nationwide. This makes FSS the largest asset-building program in the U.S. 

targeted on poor and near-poor families. At the same time, however, it serves only a modest share of the 

eligible population. Nationwide, HUD's Picture of Subsidized Households databa<;e shows 

approximately 4.8 million households participating in the Public Housing, Housing Choice Voucher, or 

Project-Based Section 8 programs in 2016. While many of these households have heads that are elderly or 

persons witb disabilities that make it difficult for them to work, more than 1.6 million of the households 

assisted in one of these three programs have heads aged 61 or lower and do not report a head, spouse or 

co-head with a disability.' 

Source: HUD's Picture of Subsidized Households Database for 2016. In addition, some households with heads 

that are elderly or persons with disabilities are capable of working and may be interested in the program. 

2 
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29709.007

3. The Research Evidence on FSS 

A. The Research Context 

The FSS program grew out of experience with three prior research demonstrations: Operation Bootstrap 

(Blomquist, Ellen, and Bell1994), Project Self-Sufficiency (Smith 1988), and the Gateway Transitional 

Families Program (Robe and Kleit 1997). Building on lessons learned from these programs and other 

available evidence, the FSS program combines financial incentives with an efficient model of service 

delivery that avoids duplication of services by referring participants to existing services in the 

community. 

Financial incentives are an important part of many efiorts to encourage low-income individuals to become 

employed and increase their earnings (Hamilton 2012; Martinson and Hamilton 201 l ). With many 

government programs including HUD rental assistance programs- providing lower levels ofhenefits to 

families with higher incomes, these financial incentives help offset the loss of public benefits and ensure 

that participants are financially better off from going to work or increasing their earnings. 

While the financial incentives of most social programs provide participants with immediate rewards (such 

as higher monthly benefit levels), the FSS program is structured differently, providing a deferred benefit 

(the FSS escrow account) whose receipt is contingent on a participant graduating successfully. One 

advantage of the FSS program's approach is that participants build assets through the escrow account that 

they can then mobilize to achieve personal goals, such as homeownership or post-secondary education, or 

overcome obstacles such as the lack of a working car needed to get to work. Another advantage to the 

FSS program's approach is that FSS participants get used to paying higher rent as their earnings increase, 

facilitating an eventual transition to private-market housing. 2 

Research shows that assets can benefit families in a number of ways. Assets provide families with 

financial security, preventing them from falling into poverty when faced with unexpected expenses, such 

as job loss, broken down cars needed to get to work, or emergency medical bills. People can also use 

assets to invest in themselves and their families by pursuing further education or training to increase 

wages and job satisfaction, starting a business, putting a down payment on a home, or saving for their 

children's education. Finally, the hope and confidence that successful asset-building instills in a family 

can both enhance their well-being and motivate them to set, pursue, and achieve long-term goals 

(Sherraden 1992; Boguslaw eta!. 2013; McKernan and Sherraden 2008)3 

B. Studies of FSS 

HUD has commissioned two major longitudinal studies ofFSS, both of which showed significant 

earnings gains for FSS participants. but neither of which had a control group or random assignment 

(Ficke and Piesse 2004; De Silva, Wijewardena, Wood, and Kau12011).4 HUD has commissioned a 

randomized controlled trial of a convenience sample of large FSS programs that is currently being 

conducted by MDRC, with interim results expected later in 2017. 

The deferred nature of the FSS escrow account raises the research question of whether it can nevertheless 

function as an effective financial incentive. This question would be difficult to answer definitively without a 

special research demonstration designed to answer it As noted below, however, there is reason to believe that 

FSS can be effective in boosting earnings. 

This paragraph and the next paragraph are reproduced from a literature review 1 prepared as part of Geyer, 

Freiman, LubelL and Villarreal (20 17). 

In addition, Rohe and Kleit ( 1999) conducted an early assessment of FSS and Olsen et al. (2005) conducted an 

analysis of administrative data which Hmnd that FSS had a positive effect on earnings. 

3 
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HUD's 2011 national study ofFSS tracked 170 families in the Housing Choice Voucher program who 

enrolled in FSS at 13 housing authorities over a four-year period. After four years: 

About one-quarter (41) of the families had graduated from FSS. Their annual earnings had 

increased from an average of$19,902 in 2006 to $33,390 in 2009 (all in 2009 dollars). Thirty-five 

had positive balances in their FSS escrow accounts, which averaged $5,294 per family 

Another one-quarter (43) were still enrolled in FSS and mostly employed during the study period. 

Their average hourly wages had increased from $11.84 to $13.61 (again, in 2009 dollars) and 

their average weekly hours of employment had risen from 29.4 to 34.9. The overwhelming 

majority had positive escrow balances, averaging in the range of $3,500. 

Of the remaining families, 63 were no longer in the FSS program, which includes families who 

gave up or lost their housing vouchers, and 23 were still in FSS but not making progress. 

Unfortunately, there was no control group to provide a benchmark for gauging these results.' 

There have been a number of evaluations of local FSS programs. The most recently reported is an 

evaluation of the FSS programs that the nonprofit Compass Working Capital administers in partnership 

with local housing authorities in Lynn and Cambridge, MA. That evaluation, which my Abt colleagues 

and I conducted over the past several years, compared the earnings and welfare outcomes for Compass 

FSS participants after an average of 40 months in the FSS program against those of a matched 

comparison group. Based on this analysis, we found that: 

Participation in the Compa~s FSS program was associated with an average gain in annual 

household earnings of$6,305 between the 4th quarter of2010 and the 1st quarter of2016. 

About half of these gains were attributable to the head of household with the balance due to other 

household members (mostly adult children). 

Participation in Compass FSS was associated with a decline of$496 in annual household welfare 

payments over this time period, but this finding is difficult to interpret given state welfare time 

limits 6 

We also examined credit and debt outcomes, finding that, on each of the following measures, Compass 

FSS participants performed significantly better than a comparison group oflow-income households in the 

same census tracts, used to provide benchmarks: 7 

• Among Compass FSS participants who entered the program with a FICO® Score, the average 

score rose from 617 to 640, an increase of23 points (3.7 percent). 

This summary of the results of De Silva, Wijewardena, Wood, and Kau! (2011) is reproduced, with minor edits, 

from Lubell (2014). 

These results are based on a comparison ofHUD data for participants with Housing Choice Vouchers in the 

Lynn and Cambridge FSS programs against a matched comparison group of similar households in other housing 

authorities. We selected the comparison group using a method known as propensity score-matching, a quasiexperimental technique. This approach is more rigorous than approaches that do not include a comparison group 

but less rigorous than a randomized controlled trial. Geyer, Freiman, Lubell, and Villarreal (2017). 

The Compass FSS programs place a stronger emphasis than most other FSS programs on helping participants 

improve their credit and debt outcomes. l would not necessarily expect similar credit and debt outcomes for 

FSS programs that do not focus strongly on these outcomes. The Compass FSS programs also differ from other 

FSS programs in a number of ways outlined in Geyer, Freiman, Lubell, and Villarreal (20 17). 

4 
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The share of Compass FSS participants who had a FICO® Score increased by 7 percentage 

points, rising from 91 to 98 percent. 

• The share of Compass FSS participants with a prime FICO® Score (above 660) rose by 14 

percentage points, from 23 to 37 percent 

Compass FSS participants experienced an average decrease in total derogatory debt of $764 and 

an average decrease in credit card debt of$6558 

There have been a number of additional local evaluations. MDRC conducted a randomized controlled 

trial of an FSS expansion that New York City undertook for purposes of testing FSS, both alone and in 

conjunction with a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program (Verma, Yang, Nunez and Long, 2017 and 

Nunez, Verma and Yang, 2015). Though neither FSS alone nor the FSS + CCT models produced earnings 

gains for the full sample, the results suggested there may have been an impact on particular outcomes and 

for some specific subgroups. Both FSS and FSS + CCT, for example, significantly increased the share of 

individuals working 30 or more hours per week. The FSS + CCT model also produced significant gains in 

employment and earnings among individuals not working at baseline; results for such families were 

consistently better for the FSS-only group than for the control group, but the difference was not 

statistically significant." A cost-benefit analysis conducted for the six-year report, released this month, 

estimates that the benefits of providing FSS to individuals that were not working at baseline exceed the 

cost to the government of offering the program. 

Several other local evaluations ofFSS have produced generally positive results, though these evaluations 

either lacked a formal comparison group 10 or focused on non-standard variations on FSS. 11 

Conclusion 

The Compass FSS evaluation results confirm that FSS can be an effective platform for helping HUDassisted households to increase their earnings, improve their credit scores, and reduce levels of credit card 

and delinquent debt. However, the success of any given local FSS program will depend on the approach it 

takes to implementing the program and the quality of implementation. I would accordingly expect results 

to vary from one local FSS program to another. 

HUD has recently taken a number of steps to strengthen performance of local FSS programs, including 

publication of a guidebook and online training on how to run an effective FSS program. HUD is also in 

the process of developing a system for measuring the performance of public housing and Housing Choice 

Voucher FSS programs. My Abt colleagues and 1 have been involved in working with BUD on these 

projects. and I am hopeful they will help existing FSS programs to strengthen their programs. 

The interim results of the national evaluation ofFSS being conducted by MDRC will provide important 

additional evidence about the effectiveness ofFSS. These initial results, however, will not reflect any 

effects of the recently adopted and pending measures HUD has adopted to improve performance. 

This summary of the results of our research on the Compass FSS program is reproduced from the executive 

summary of Geyer, Freiman, Lubell, and Villarreal (2017). 

This summary of the MDRC research is adapted from the literature review I conducted for Geyer, Freiman, 

Lubell. and Villarreal (2017). Of note, the 2015 MDRC report indicates that the New York City expansion of 

FSS experienced a number of challenges, with the case management approach changing several times in the 

initial years. 

10 Holgate et. al. (2016); Anthony (2005); and Gibson (2002). 

11 Santiago, Gabier, and Smith (20 17). 

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References 

Anthony, Jerry. 2005. "Family Self-Sufficiency Programs: An Evaluation of Program Benefits and 

Factors Affecting Participants' Success." Urban Affairs Review 41 (1): 65-92. 

http://joumals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/1 0.117711 078087405277883"joumalCode=uarb 

Blomquist, J., L Ellen, and S. BelL 1994. Operation Bootstrap: Volume ll, Program Impacts. 

Boguslaw, Janet, Tatjana Meschede, Hannah Thomas, Laura Sullivan, Thomas Shapiro, and Sara 

Chaganti. 2013. Hard Choices: Navigating the Economic Shock of Unemployment. Washington, DC: 

The Pew Charitable Trusts. 

De Silva, La lith, !mesh Wijewardena, Michelle Wood, and Bulbul KauL 20 ll. Evaluation of the Fami(y 

Self-Sufficiency Program: Prospective Study. Report prepared by Planmatics, Inc. and Abt 

Associates. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

https:l/www.huduser.gov/portaV/Publications/pdf/FamilySelfSnfficiency.pdf 

Ficke, Robert C., and Andrea Piesse. 2004. Evaluation of the Family Se/f-Sl{[f/ciency Program: 

Retrospective A1U1/ysis, 1996-2000. Report prepared by WEST AT in collaboration with Johnson, 

Bassin, and Shaw. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

https:/lwww.huduser.gov/portali/Publicationslpdf/selfsufficiency.pdf 

Geyer, Judy, Leslie Freiman, Jeffrey Lubell and Micah Villarreal. 2017. Evaluation of the Compass 

Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Programs Administered in Partnership with Public Housing Agencies 

in Lynn and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bethesda, MD: Abt Associates. 

http://www.abtassociates.com/CompassFSS 

Gibson, Karen J 2002. The Housing Authority of Portland's GOALS Program: Findings from a Survey of 

Graduates. Portland, OR: Portland State University. 

Hamilton, Gayle. 2012. Improving Employment and Earnings for TANF Recipients. Research Synthesis 

Brief, No.6. Report prepared hy The Urban Institute. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and 

Evaluation. 

http://www.mdrc.org/sites/defaultifiles/lmproving%20Employment%20nd%20Eamings%20for"lo20T 

ANF%20Recipients.pdf 

Holgate, Brandynn, Julia Tripp, Sylvia Singleton, Priyanka Kabir, Wendel Mirbel, and Donna Haig 

Friedman. 2016. Melropolitan Boston Housing Partnership's Family Se/f-Sujjiciency Program 

Evaluation, July I, 2010-June 30, 2015. Boston, MA: Center for Social Policy, UMASS Boston. 

Martinson, Karin, and Gayle Hamilton. 2011. Providing Earnings Supplements to Encourage and Sustain 

Employment: Lessons from Research and Practice. Report prepared by MDRC. Washington, DC: 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office 

of Planning, Research and Evaluation. https://www.mdrc.org/sites/defaultifiles/policybrief 30.pdf 

McKernan, Signe-Mary, and Michael Sherraden. 2008. Asset Building and Low-Income Families. 

Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. 

Nunez, Stephen, Nandita Verma, and Edith Yang. 2015. Building Se/f-Su.fjiciency for Housing Voucher 

Recipients: Interim Findings from the Work Rewards Demonstration in New York City. New York: 

MDRC. http://wvrw.mdrc.org/sites/defaultifiles/Building SelfSufficiency for Housing Voucher Recipients FR.pdf 

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Olsen, Edgar 0., Catherine A. Tyler, Jonathan W. King, and Paul E. Carrillo. 2005. "The Effects of 

Different Types of Housing Assistance on Earnings and Employment." Cityscape 8(2) 163-187. 

bttps://www.huduser.gov/periodicals/cityscpe/vol8num2/ch8.pdf 

Rohe, William M., and Rachel Garshick Kleit. 1997. Gateway Housing Program Report to Congress. 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

Robe, William M., and Rachel Garshick Kleit. 1999. "Housing, Welfare Reform, and Self-Sufficiency: 

An Assessment of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program." Housing Policy Debate 10 (2): 333-369. 

https://www. innovations.harvard.edulsites/default!files/hpd 1 002 rohe.pdf 

Santiago, Anna Maria, George C. Galster, and Richard J. Smith. 2017. "Evaluating the Impacts of an 

Enhanced Family Self-Sufficiency Program." Housing Policy Debate. Published online. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/l 0.1 080/l 0511482.2017.1295093. 

Sherraden, Michael. 1992. Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy. New York: Routledge. 

Smith, Nelson. 1988. Project Self- Sufficiency: Summary Reports of Selected Demonstration Sites. HUD005773. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

https://v.ww.huduser.gov/portal!publications/other/summry rpt slc sites.html 

Verma, Nandita, Edith Yang, Stephen Nunez, and David Long. 2017. Learning/rom the Work Rewards 

Demonstration: Final Results from the Family Self-Sufficiency Study in New York City. New York, 

NY: MDRC. hltp:l/www.mdrc.org/sites/default!fi!es/ONYC Work Rewards Final FR.pdf 

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29709.012

MPASS 

K! I I,\ I 

Written Testimony of Sharon (JiSherry") Riva 

Founder and Executive Director 

Compass Working Capital 

Before the House Committee on Financial Services 

Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance 

For a Hearing Entitled "Overview of the family Self-Sufficiency Program" 

September 27, 2017 

Aspire. Plan. Invest 

Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to provide testimony today about the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program. 

My name is Sherry Riva, and lam the founder and Executive Director of Compass Working Capital 

("Compass"). Compass is a national nonprofit financial services organization headquartered in Boston, 

Massachusetts. 

1 am here today to share my deep support for the FSS program, and my thoughts on ways in which 

Congress can take action to expand the scope and impact of the FSS program. 

There are three key points I would like you to remember from my testimony today: 

First: The FSS program empowers low-income American families to transform their own lives. It provides 

opportunities for working families to invest in themselves, ln their children, and in their financial futures. 

Second: The FSS program is a promising, evidence-based mode! that has enjoyed strong bi-partisan 

support since it was introduced in the early 1990s. FSS promotes work, helps people build savings, and 

creates the conditions for families to move themselves up and out of poverty. It is ripe for expansion 

and for greater public-private partnership, and a place where government, practitioners, and other 

community partners can come together to support hard-working American families. 

And~ finally: The most important action that this subcommittee can take would be to introduce 

legislation that mirrors the Family Self-Sufficiency Act (5.1344), a bill recently introduced in the Senate 

by Senators Blunt Reed, Scott, and Menendez. 

I would like to take a step back to tel! you more about Compass, how we do this work, and why we 

chose to focus on the FSS program as a tool to achieve our mission. 

At Compass, our mission is to empower low-income families to build assets and financial capabilities as a 

pathway out of poverty. Our work builds on the research and practice of a broader asset building field, 

which has demonstrated the key role that financial security plays in breaking the cycle of poverty. Given 

the powerful role that assets can play in the lives of low-income families, and the benefits of asset 

ownership for low-income families that can accrue to our communities, we believe there is more that 

can be done to help low-income families build assets and become more financially secure. 

The FSS program is one existing platform that can be further leveraged to achieve this aim. It is an 

extraordinary modeL There is no anti-poverty program like lt in the country, one that provides a built-in 

savings account to low-income families who are working to improve their financial situation, and pairs 

89 South Str('et, Suite 804 I Boston, MA 02111 l p 617 .7~'tl08lD I F 617.390.7552 ! v..-v.w.rompasS\.\·orkingcapital.org 
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that account with stable affordable housing and service coordination. Studies of the FSS program 

indicate a positive impact on household earnings and savings, as well as a strong rate of voluntary exits 

from housing assistance and successful transitions to responsible homeowners hip. A 2011 study of FSS 

participants by HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research found that program graduates 

increased their incomes by $13,488 on average over a four-year study period- which represents a 17% 

annual growth rate in household earnings.' HUD also reports that FSS graduates who build savings in 

their escrow account do so at an average of $6,500- a significant sum for families to invest in asset 

building goals. Moreover, 36% of graduates have chosen to leave housing assistance within one year of 

graduation, and 11.76% of graduates have gone on to purchase a home.' 

Compass recognized FSS as a potentially powerful, and highly scalable, tool to help low-income families 

in subsidized housing build assets, strengthen their financial capabilities, achieve their financial goals, 

and access broader economic opportunity. FSS already includes two elements that are important for 

helping families make progress toward financial security: (1) stable, affordable housing provided 

through federal subsidized housing programs, and (2) an incentive for participants to increase their 

earnings in the form of the "escrow" savings account that grows as their earnings grow. At Compass, we 

believed that we could improve upon the program, and heighten its impact, by introducing a third 

component: individualized, client-driven financial coaching and education to help participants chart and 

follow a path to reach theirfinancial goals and become more financially secure. 

Over the last seven years, we have pursued this effort to expand the scope and impact of the FSS 

program in two key ways. First, we partner directly with public housing authorities and other housing 

providers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to provide an "asset building and financial 

capability model" for the FSS program. The Compass FSS program provides participants with financial 

education and customized one-on-one financial coaching, in addition to the escrow savings account 

which is administered by the housing partner. The Compass model also focuses on integrating other 

asset building strategies into the FSS program. For instance, drawing from asset building research and 

practice- including research about how the practice of savings can build hope and aspiration- Compass 

creates FSS account statements that look and feel like bank statements and allow families to see the 

savings they are building through the program. In addition, our financial coaches work closely with 

clients to help them optimize their savings toward their financial goals, such as buying a home, saving 

for their children's education, or building their credit. 

Between 2010 and 2015, Compass expanded its work in FSS from an initial, pilot partnership with the 

public housing authority in lynn, MA into a regional operation, working also with the public housing 

authority (PHA) in Cambridge, MA and Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership (MBHP), a regional 

housing agency serving families across Greater Boston. We now partner with public housing authorities 

and other affordable housing providers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to offer this 

innovative FSS model to their residents. These programs serve about 900 families per year, with 

enrollment increasing each year. 

Our second strategy for expanding the scope and impact of the FSS program is our National FSS 

Network. Building on the success of our local programs in New England, we launched this Network in 

late 2016 to provide training and technical assistance on the Compass FSS model to mission aligned 

1 "Housing More People More Effectively Through a Dynamic Housing Policy," Jeff lubell, Abt Associates, 

December 2014. 2 FY2017 Congressional Justification for FSS. 

Page 2 of 12 
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partners around the country. Partners receive access to Compass's marketing tools, financial coaching 

methodology, financial education curriculum, data systems and tools, and expert personal financial 

content. Our initial partners are in Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois, and we continue to field 

inquiries from housing providers around the country that are interested in unpacking the power of this 

promising asset building model in their own local communities. 

I have been asked to provide responses to several questions on the FSS program: 

1. Were participants in the FSS program able to become and stay employed, become independent of 

TANF assistance, increase their income level, and become self-sufficient? 

In our seven years of building and expanding this program, we have engaged in continual program 

monitoring and evaluation with external research partners to inform program modifications and 

evaluate the program's impact. Compass also engages in ongoing internal performance measurement 

and monitoring to assess participant outcomes against benchmark targets in core areas of financial 

security: income and employment; credit and debt; savings; utilization of high quality financial products 

and services; and asset development. 

Most recently, the results of our FSS programs have been independently verified through a rigorous, 

multi-year, quasi-experimental study conducted by Abt Associates. 3 After an average of 40 months of 

participation, families in our programs earned more income and received less welfare payments than 

their matched peers. The study found that participants decreased their annual household welfare 

income by $496 on average. Participation in the Compass FSS program was associated with an average 

gain in annual household earnings of $6,305. 

The Abt study also documented that Compass FSS participants achieved positive credit and debt 

outcomes that exceeded benchmarks, including: 

An average increase in credit score of 23 points, compared to an average increase of 3.9 points 

in a comparison group 

An average decrease in derogatory debt of $764, compared to an average increase of $554 in a 

comparison group 

An average decrease in credit card debt of $655, compared to no change in a comparison group. 

One quarter of Compass participants experienced a decrease in credit card debt of $1,000 or 

more. 

An increased likelihood of establishing credit, if entering the program with no credit history 

Emerging data on graduates of the Compass FSS program is also promising. FSS is a five year program, 

and so since launching our first FSS program in late 2010, Compass has graduated 113 families from our 

FSS programs. 100% of graduates are employed when they exit the program and 100% are free from 

TANF assistance, as both are requirements to graduate. All of these graduates have made progress 

toward financial security. Studies- and our experience- show that for a significant portion of families, 

FSS can help them achieve substantially higher and more stable incomes that helps their families thrive. 

This change in income often enables these families to transition to the unassisted market or reduces the 

cost of the rental subsidies they receive, freeing up subsidies for other families. From our perspective, 

3 The complete study is available at http://abtassociates.com/CompassFSS. A one-page summary of this study is 

including in the appendix section of this written testimony. 

Page 3 of 12 
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however, self-sufficiency does not mean that all families exit subsidized housing at the conclusion of 

those five years. The barriers and challenges that each family faces are different, and families enter the 

program at different starting points on their path to greater economic mobility. Regardless of whether 

families are in a financial position to exit subsidized housing at the conclusion of the program, FSS is an 

opportunity to make significant progress toward financial security- which includes increased earnings, 

decreased use of public assistance, increased savings, and stronger financial capabilities overall. 

The best way to tell you about the power of the FSS program and its impact on families is to share 

stories of the experiences of individual participants. 

Tanya Febrillet is a graduate of the FSS program that we operate in Lynn, Massachusetts in partnership 

with the local public housing authority. When Tanya enrolled in the FSS program, she had been receiving 

housing assistance for about four years. She was working full-time4 and raising her two children, but she 

had bigger dreams, including owning a home one day. At that time, Tanya believed that owning a home 

wasn't, in her words, "for families like mine"- a single, low-income mother, who came from a family 

where no one had ever been a homeowner. like many families, Tanya was just getting by but she 

desperately wanted to get ahead and build a better life for herself and her children. 

The FSS program was just what she needed in order to do that. After joining the FSS program in 2010, 

Tanya started working with a financial coach at Compass. She increased her annual income by nearly 

$8,000, improved her credit score by more than 140 points, paid down her debt, and built over $3,000 in 

savings. She graduated from the FSS program in 2015 and achieved her dream of becoming a 

homeowner- the first in her family to do so. "But what makes me happiest of all is seeing how my 

children love their new home," says Tanya. "Thanks to the Compass FSS program, now I too believe that 

families like mine can get ahead, live better, and accomplish our big dreams and goals such as buvinq a 

home." 

I have included several additional specific examples in the appendix of how the FSS program has 

supported low-income families to become more financial secure and access greater economic 

opportunity. 

2. What roles does the FSS Coordinator play in helping participants achieve employment goals and 

accumulate assets? 

Compass's interest in the FSS program is rooted in our understanding of the program's potential to 

support low-income families to build assets and financial capabilities. In order to build on the program's 

fundamental strong design, our model centers on integrating financial coaching and education into the 

FSS program. In the Compass FSS model, financial coaches take the place of the traditional FSS 

Coordinator. Financial coaching is a growing field. Compass has followed closely both research and 

practice related to financial coaching, and our work builds on and contributes to this evolving field. Our 

coaches use a variety of strategies in our work with clients. We believe our clients are the experts in 

their own lives and goals. Therefore our coaching model is meant to be led and driven by the client. 

4 76% of Compass FSS participants are employed when they enroll in the program. This is fairly representative of 

families receiving HUD rental assistance overall. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "in 2016, 

75% of non-elderly, non-disabled households receiving HUD rental assistance in the United States were working, 

worked recently, or likely were subject to work requirements." See 

h ttps :l/www. cbp p. org/ sites/ de fault/files/ atoms/fi les/4-13-11 hou s-US. pdf. 

Page 4 of 12 
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Coaches work with clients to develop a budget, build credit, reduce debt, access high quality financial 

products and services, avoid predatory financial products and services, and so on. In addition, coaches 

focus on structuring their work with clients to build hope and motivation. When clients first begin in the 

FSS program, their goals can feel large and unattainable. The work of owning a home, saving for your 

child's college education, getting out of debt, or starting a small business takes years, and it can be 

difficult to know where to start. Coaches work with clients to break these big goals down into smaller, 

specific steps, helping clients to reframe smaller actions as a series of important milestones on their way 

toward their big goals. 

At the same time, we have developed our expertise in personal finance for low-income people. For 

instance, many Compass clients struggle with high student debt burdens that are difficult to overcome 

on their own, and that make it nearly impossible for clients to otherwise make progress toward their 

broader financial goals. Our coaches are equipped to guide clients through the essential steps of 

beginning to address student loan issues, and we have a relationship with an outside partner to whom 

we can refer clients with particularly challenging loan situations. We have developed similar in-house 

expertise and external referral relationships on topics such as homeownership, collections and 

judgments, car purchase, and credit improvement. 

What we see at Compass is that participating families are utilizing the savings they accumulate in their 

FSS escrow account to invest in themselves and in their children. The majority of escrow dollars accrued 

by Compass clients are put towards goals of homeownership, credit improvement, education, and 

emergency savings. 

3. What steps should HUD take to improve the FSS program, assist grantees and increase program 

accountability? 

HUD has already taken several initial steps to improve the FSS program, assist grantees and increase 

program accountability. In June 2015, HUD convened a national Community of Practice comprised of 

leading FSS practitioners from around the country to document best practices in the FSS program and 

discuss ways to improve the program. In June 2017, HUD published the "Family Self-Sufficiency Program 

Guidebook for Owners of Project-Based Section 8 Developments" and "Administering an Effective 

Family Self-Sufficiency Program: A Guidebook Based on Evidence and Promising Practices" based in part 

on insights from the Community of Practice. These guidebooks were accompanied by an online training 

to assist practitioners in administering strong programs. HUD has also taken some steps to encourage 

the integration of asset building strategies and other innovative practices into the FSS program. Building 

on these initial efforts, HUD could take additional steps to strengthen the scope and impact of the FSS 

program, as summarized below. 

Provide ongoing training and technical assistance to FSS programs. HUD's initial recent steps to 

provide more training and support to FSS programs are important, and we would encourage 

HUD to maintain and deepen this practice. 

Build a broader field of practice and support sharing of best practices. At Compass, where we 

work with many PHAs, our experience is that FSS Coordinators want to connect and share ideas 

and best practices with one another. While some FSS Coordinators have taken steps to convene 

regional affinity groups, there is more that HUD can do to foster and support this type of 

collaboration and knowledge sharing among FSS Coordinators in order to strengthen practice 

overall. 

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Develop o system for measuring the performance of FSS programs. This would inspire stronger 

performance among all programs and better enable HUD to identify programs that are not 

adequately serving participants. 

Simplify the FSS Contract of Participation (COP/, which serves as a barrier to participation for 

some residents. To join the FSS program, residents must complete a contract called the FSS 

Contract of Participation (COP), which documents the terms and conditions of the FSS program, 

including graduation requirements and the escrow account. Our experience is that this contract 

is too long and very difficult to comprehend, to the point of deterring eligible participants from 

enrolling in the program. In our experience, residents have actively taken steps to attend our 

FSS orientation and financial workshops, only to stop short of enrolling in the program when 

asked to sign the COP. Our recommendation is that HUD make this document more accessible, 

primarily by shortening the document and utilizing plain language that all residents can 

understand. 

4. Absent the FSS program, would housing assistance providers, such as public housing authorities, 

be able to offer residents similar wrap-around services utilized by residents to achieve selfsufficiency? 

Poverty is a fundamentally complex issue, and families receiving housing assistance face multiple 

challenges to achieving self-sufficiency. The FSS program is unique among the various, and 

important, tools in place to support families to become self-sufficient. There is no other program 

like it, that bundles stable affordable housing and service coordination with an incentive-based 

savings account. In our years of experience working with low-income families, we have found this 

combination of services to be essential for supporting low-income families to achieve selfsufficiency. It is difficult to imagine how housing assistance providers would be able to offer 

residents a similar combination of services absent the FSS program. 

5. What changes would you recommend the Committee make to the FSS program in order to 

increase efficiencies, serve more families and improve outcomes? 

We would recommend that the Committee take action to introduce legislation that mirrors the 

Family Self-Sufficiency Act (S.l344), a bill recently introduced in the Senate by Senators Blunt, Reed, 

Scott, and Menendez. FSS is a fundamentally strong program. We believe that it can be even 

stronger, and reach more hard-working families. 

We support the following key modifications to the FSS program: 

Expand to Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA): We would encourage Congress to make 

permanent the expansion of FSS eligibility to households receiving Section 8 PBRA if owners opt 

to offer the program. PBRA serves somewhat similar populations to public housing and 

vouchers, but until recently residents were not able to enroll in FSS. The expansion of FSS to 

PBRA has been included in recent appropriations bills, but it also needs permanent 

authorization. In August 2016, HUD issued a Notice implementing the appropriations legislation. 

Our experience at Compass is that owners are reluctant to start and invest in FSS programs, 

since the authority needs to be extended every year in the appropriations bill. Making the 

Page 6 of 12 
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29709.018

extension permanent would encourage PBRA owners to implement and expand the FSS 

program. 

Align FSS eligibility with housing assistance eligibility: We would encourage Congress to ensure 

that all households with income between 50% and 80% of the area median income (AMI) are 

eligible to participate in and take full advantage of the FSS program. Currently, families whose 

income is above SO% of AMI are not eligible to build savings through the FSS escrow account. Our 

experience at Compass is that this structure means that just as people start to move up the 

income ladder, they experience a scaling back of the support they need to continue making 

progress to self-sufficiency. To ensure that FSS can function effectively as a bridge to selfsufficiency, all individuals eligible for housing assistance- which generally is based on household 

income of up to 80% of AMI- should be able to fully participate in the FSS program. 

Spur innovation: We would encourage Congress to create incentives for program administrators 

to innovate and improve their programs by allowing HUD to set aside 5% of the funding made 

available for FSS coordinators to expand FSS programs that are particularly innovative. That 

could include, but would not be limited to, rewarding programs that produce stronger 

participant outcomes, develop strong partnerships to expand services available to participants, 

leverage technology to provide services to hard to reach populations, or establish public-private 

models to leverage local resources in support of a strong FSS program. 

Improve program efficiency: We would encourage Congress to permanently combine two 

separate FSS programs into one with a unified set of policies that will make it easier and more 

efficient for PHAs to operate strong FSS programs. Appropriations bills in recent years have fixed 

this problem on a temporary basis, but the underlying authorizing statute needs to be amended 

to thoroughly integrate public housing agencies' administration of FSS for the families they serve 

through the public housing and Housing Choice Voucher programs. 

Increase program impact: We would encourage Congress to broaden the scope of the 

supportive services that may be offered to participants, in order to further help families improve 

their economic circumstances and increase earnings, a goal of the program. In addition, we 

would recommend the development of performance based metrics that are integrated into the 

program's funding structure. 

Expand enrollment: We would encourage Congress to substantially increase the number of 

families able to participate in FSS through increased funding for FSS coordinators (subject to 

approval through the appropriations process), and flexibility for private owners to draw on 

reserve funds to support FSS administrative costs. 

low-income American families have hopes and dreams for themselves, their children, and their futures, 

as all of us do. Our experience at Compass is that families want to work, and they want to get ahead. We 

believe the FSS program is a powerful opportunity to tap into these deeply held aspirations and to invest 

in families' abilities to transform their own lives. 

Page 7 of 12 
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29709.019

Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you again for this 

opportunity to appear before you today and for holding this hearing. I will be happy to answer your 

questions. 

Page 8 of 12 
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29709.020

APPENDIX A: One-page summary of "Evaluation of the Compass Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Programs 

Administered in Partnership with Public Housing Agencies in lynn and Cambridge, Massachusetts" by 

Abt Associates, September 2017 

Page 9 of 12 
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29709.021

APPENDIX B: Stories of families who have graduated from Compass FSS Programs 

Elly Perez lives in Boston. She is a graduate of the Compass 

FSS Program operated in partnership with Lynn Housing 

Authority and Neighborhood Development (lHAND). 

Elly has two children. Several years ago, a housing voucher 

from LHAND helped Elly and her family go from being 

homeless to having a stable place to live. Housing assistance 

provided the platform Elly needed to work toward her 

financial goals. First, she earned her bachelor's degree. Then, 

with the support of her Compass FSS financial coach, she 

began to pay down her debt, improve her credit, and work toward saving for her goal of becoming a 

homeowner. Upon graduating from the FSS program, Elly chose to leave subsidized housing and move 

into market rate rental housing. She is looking now for a house close to her family in Salem, MA and will 

use the money she saved through the FSS program as part of her down payment. 

"Nothing is impossible," says Elly. "Mv mom was a single mom, raising seven kids. Because of that, 

because of where I grew up, I was supposed to repeat all these same cycles. Compass really helped me 

figure out what I needed to do to make sure my kids and I had a better future." 

Sol Ortiz lives in Lynn, Massachusetts. She is a participant in 

the Compass FSS Program operated in partnership with Lynn 

Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development (LHAND). 

Sol first heard about the FSS program when she saw a flyer in 

the lHAND office. Her focus so far has been on building 

savings, dealing with her debt, building her credit, and 

sticking to a budget. 

Her big goal is to own a home. She knows it's a long road to 

get there, but she's committed to doing what it takes. 

Sol has five children. "Everytl!inq I have learned in this program, I have also passed onto my children," 

says Sol. For example, she helped her daughter, now 24, graduate from college. That same daughter is 

now engaged, and Sol helped show her daughter and her daughter's fiance how to set up a budget and 

work toward their own goal of buying a home, too. 

Page 10 of 12 
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29709.022

Amanda Zaccagnini was just 20 years old when she and her 

first child, Joseph, moved to Curwin Circle, a public housing 

development operated by lynn Housing Authority and 

Neighborhood Development in lynn, Massachusetts. 

Amanda had always been responsible with her finances, but 

she found it difficult to get ahead. She hoped to be able to 

eventually leave public housing and own her own home, but 

most of the time she was focused on just getting by day to 

day. 

Amanda was introduced to the Compass FSS program by her leasing officer at Curwin Circle. For 

Amanda, one of the most important things about the Compass FSS Program was that it would help her 

build savings even if her rent went up. Amanda's dream was to own her own home- a place that she 

and her two sons could truly call their own. She attended First Time Homebuyer Workshops and worked 

with her coach, Carlos, to save up for a down payment and mortgage, all while attending nursing school. 

In February, 2017 Amanda graduated from the Compass FSS program. She now owns her own home and 

lives there with her two sons, Joseph, 9, and Jayce, 4. "They love our new house. We have a backyard 

and they go out and play. This is our home. Thev have their own roams. We aren't squeezed into two 

little rooms anymore. They see how happy I am and see how hard I work. I did it for them." 

Rosa Paulino's dream was always to own her own homesomething in a safe area, with some privacy, and neighbors 

she could count on and with whom she could share daily life. 

It was a dream that she never thought she'd be able to make 

come true. 

"I worked so hard. I always saved money. But I had no idea 

how to invest that money," says Rosa, who first came to 

Compass in 2013, when she was working as an outreach 

coordinator for a senior services agency in Lynn, MA. At the 

time, she and her 17-year-old daughter were renting an apartment in lynn, with the help of a subsidized 

housing voucher from the local housing authority. 

Buying a home wasn't simply a financial challenge for Rosa. She also remembers feeling unsure of how 

the process worked. "Before I came to Compass. I didn't feel safe to buy a home, I didn't know the 

procedures to do it," Rosa reflected recently. "Compass taught me how to do it." 

FSS is a five year program, as the process of building financial security and working toward major 

financial goals is not a quick one. But for some families, like Rosa's, reaching those goals can happen 

much faster. It took just over two years before Rosa graduated from the program, gave up her housing 

voucher, and moved into her own home in lynn. With support from her Compass financial coach, she 

had improved her credit, paid off bills, and built savings, all in preparation to qualify for a mortgage and 

buy a home. 

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29709.023

HOUSING 

PARTNERSHIP 

NETWORK 

Testimony of Kristin Siglin 

Senior Vice President, Policy 

Housing Partnership Network 

Before 

Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance 

House Financial Services Committee 

September 27, 2017 

Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy and Ranking Member Cleaver. Thank you for holding this hearing on 

HUD's Family Self-Sufficiency Program. 

I am Kristin Siglin, Senior Vice President, Policy of the Housing Partnership Network (HPN), a business 

collaborative of high-performing non profits that develop and finance affordable housing and 

community development projects. HPN members work in all 50 states, creating affordable housing 

and improving neighborhoods. In 2013, HPN received a MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and 

Effective Institutions, and a Wells Fargo NEXT Opportunity Award in recognition of its ongoing 

leadership and innovation in affordable housing and community development. 

HPN operates businesses that help improve the efficiency and impact of our members, such as 

property and casualty insurance company that insures their apartments, a bulk buying business that 

helps them purchase the supplies they need to build and renovate housing, and a social purpose Real 

Estate Investment Trust that provides financing for affordable housing. HPN is a social enterprise- we 

use private sector business practices to help our members achieve the mission of building more 

affordable housing in thriving communities. 

HPN's members are larger nonprofits that are able to tackle tough affordable housing challenges 

because they have strong business skills that enable them to manage real estate efficiently and they 

also have a social mission to help residents improve their lives. HPN's members own and manage 

more than 350,000 affordable apartments, but they often go beyond just being landlords. Stable, 

affordable housing provides a platform to help residents improve their lives. For example, HPN 

members work with health care providers to offer frail senior citizens both affordable housing and the 

supports they need to stay healthy and independent. Similarly, HPN members who manage affordable 

housing often use Service Coordinators who help residents connect to available services like job 

training, financial coaching, and other supports to help them improve their economic circumstances. 

HPN developers often find that stable, affordable housing can help families increase their earn lngs 

because residents who have predictable, reasonable rent don't have to worry about eviction and can 

instead focus on employment and promotions. This can be complicated by the link in assisted housing 

programs between tenant rents and incomes. When residents of public housing or residents with 

vouchers earn more money, their rents Increase because rents are set at 30% of resident incomes. 
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29709.024

More income for the resident triggers a higher rent payment. This policy is intended to make the most 

of an already scarce resource by directing rental assistance to the families who need it most. In 

addition, it protects the over half of families in assisted housing who are elderly or disabled or both. 

The Family Self-Sufficiency Program (FSS) was created in 1990 to address the policy goals of both fairly 

allocating rental assistance and giving families an economic incentive to get ahead. FSS gives families a 

financial incentive to earn more: as their income rises and therefore their rent increases, the additional 

rent the families pay goes into escrow accounts that they receive upon graduation from the program. 

Generally, families have five years to achieve their goals. Families can receive their escrow accounts 

when they remain employed, become independent ofTANF assistance, and meet the goals they set in 

joining FSS. FSS families can use the funds in their escrow accounts for education, transportation, or 

homeownership if they have met the conditions of graduation. 

FSS also funds Service Coordinators who connect residents to the resources and training that help 

them pursue employment opportunities and meet financial goals. Families are able to build assets 

with FSS because they benefit from stable, affordable housing, and thus can focus on their finances, 

education and employment. FSS has a good track record of using stable, affordable housing as a 

platform to help families build assets. FSS has had bipartisan appeal as a way to help families up and 

out of poverty. When families are able to graduate from FSS and use their improved finances to leave 

assisted housing, this frees up an apartment for another low-income family. 

HPN members are always looking for better ways to improve resident outcomes. For most of its 

history, FSS has been restricted to public housing residents and voucher holders. The agencies 

administering FSS were public housing authorities. Beginning in 2015, appropriations bills expanded 

the FSS program from vouchers and public housing to Project Based Rental Assistance (PBRA). This 

makes sense because PBRA residents are similar to public housing residents or voucher holders in 

terms of demographics. PBRA differs from public housing and vouchers in program administration and 

history, not in who it serves. Given HPN members' focus on resident outcomes, it follows that they 

would be pioneers in adopting FSS for PBRA. 

In 2014, before the appropriations bill allowing the expansion of FSS to PBRA passed, one of HPN's 

members, The Caleb Group, was already working with Compass Working Capital using its own 

resources to offer financial coaching and escrow accounts to help residents build assets and achieve 

their financial goals. You have invited a terrific group of leaders to talk about how to leverage housing 

assistance to help residents up and out of poverty. You will be hearing from Sherry Riva of Compass 

Working Capital about her work with housing authorities and nonprofits like The Caleb Group, as well 

as Aaron Gornstein of POAH, another HPN member that has also been a pioneer in working with 

Compass to offer FSS to residents of affordable housing. I don't want to repeat what you will hear 

directly from Compass and POAH, so I'd like to focus on what The Caleb Group has found with the 

adoption of FSS for residents of PBRA. 

The Caleb Group is a nonprofit developer of affordable housing with headquarters in Swampscott, 

Massachusetts. They own over 2000 apartments in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and 

Maine. The Caleb Group began working with Compass Working Capital in 2014 at two properties, one 

in Willimantic, Connecticut and the other in Gloucester, Massachusetts. I'll focus on The Caleb 
52 


29709.025

Group's work in Willimantic, a small city in northeastern Connecticut that has had a high poverty rate 

and a significant drug problem for many years. Thirty four families have enrolled in the FSS program at 

The Caleb Group's property. Fifty percent of those families were employed when they enrolled; the 

average income among all enrolled clients at intake was $11,086; and average total debt at intake was 

about the same as average income. Almost all participants identify as Hispanic and 82% are women. 

Half of all participants have a high school diploma or GED, and 31% completed some college but only 

12% earned a post-secondary degree of some kind. Five people have graduated from the program so 

far. Four of them built escrow in the program, and the average escrow was $8,543. Three FSS 

graduates used their escrow to purchase a home. One used it to improve her credit. 

Achieving these results takes both time and attention. The reason that there is a five year term on FSS 

contracts of participation with residents is that it takes time to build job skills, improve credit and pay 

down debt. The Caleb Group is working on systematically expanding their FSS work to more of their 

portfolio of affordable housing. In addition to Gloucester and Willimantic, Caleb has begun to 

implement FSS at their properties in Maine, working with a partner to do the financial coaching with 

the families. The Caleb Group staff focuses on what they do best, which is to run affordable housing 

well. Caleb works with partners like Compass who have the expertise to coach families on how to get 

and keep jobs and improve their finances. The CEO of The Caleb Group emailed me about their FSS 

work with families "The major point is how satisfying it is to show folks how they can make the leap ... " 

This is a promising small example of what affordable housing could do when combined with a tangible 

path to economic independence for residents. FSS is utilized by a fraction of the residents of 

subsidized housing. FSS is voluntary for both the residents and managers of assisted housing. Owners 

and PHAs choose to offer FSS to their residents, and residents can choose not to participate. 

According to HUD's FY 17 Congressional Justification for the program, over 71,000 households 

currently participate in FSS. 58,000 of those families have vouchers and 13,000 of them reside in 

public housing. 52% of program graduates have escrow savings at an average of $6500. 100% of 

graduating families did not receive TANF benefits, one of the conditions for graduation. According to 

HUD, 36% of FSS graduates exited rental assistance within one year of leaving the program. 

The potential universe of FSS graduates is much larger than this. The Center on Budget and Policy 

Priorities estimates that there are over 2 million heads of households living in federally subsidized 

rental housing who are neither elderly nor disabled and thus are potential FSS participants.' A 

systematic and thoughtful expansion of FSS could bring these households into the economic 

mainstream and free up scarce rental housing for families that are not currently served. 

1 Compass Working Capital report, page 5 

~:!/staticl.squarespace.com/static/54749c39e4b0712a5b6a8d96/t/56c49b0c356fb001441b2bb8/1455725324915/lnte 

grating+Asset+Building+and+Financia!+Capability+Strategies+into+Subsidized+Housing+Programs.Report+on+Roundtab!e:J 

2+February+2016.Compass+Working+Capita!.pdf 
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29709.026

1 encourage this committee to introduce and pass legislation based on a bipartisan bill in the Senate, 

S.1344, introduced by Senators Blunt (R-MO) Reed (D-RI) Scott (R-SC) and Menendez (D-NJ) that 

strengthens and updates FSS. The provisions of the bill are as follows: 

1. The Blunt-Reed bill makes permanent the expansion of FSS to PBRA. The expansion of FSS to 

PBRA has been included in recent appropriations bills, but it also needs permanent 

authorization. HUD has issued a Notice implementing the appropriations legislation and PBRA 

properties are beginning to file FSS plans with HUD. As of September 11,2017 lS PBRA 

properties have begun offering FSS, and there are many more public housing properties that 

are being converted to PBRA as part of RAD transactions that are continuing the FSS work with 

the residents. 

There could be more multifamily owners offering FSS to their residents, but there are several 

reasons why they don't. Owners hesitate to start FSS programs if the authority needs to be 

extended every year in the appropriations bill. Therefore, making the extension permanent 

could go a long way toward creating the conditions for PBRA owners to adopt FSS and raise the 

funds to fully support the program. This could make the asset-building benefits of FSS available 

to many more residents of subsidized housing. If FSS were permanently expanded to PBRA, 

there are certainly more affordable housing owners in HPN who would take advantage of the 

ability to offer residents escrow accounts. 

2. The Blunt-Reed bill increases efficiency by permanently combining two separate FSS programs 

into one. Appropriations bills in recent years have fixed this problem on a temporary basis, but 

the underlying authorizing statute needs to be amended so that PHAs don't have to administer 

separate programs for public housing and Housing Choice Vouchers. 

3. The bill also broadens the scope of the supportive services that may be offered to help families 

improve their economic circumstances and increase earnings, a goal of the program. 

4. The bill creates incentives for PHAs to innovate and improve their programs by allowing HUD to 

set aside 5% of the funding made available for administrative costs to expand FSS programs 

with strong outcomes. This provision is complemented by current efforts at HUD to develop 

and disseminate best practices for FSS programs. 

5. The legislation aligns FSS eligibility with housing program eligibility by clarifying that residents 

between 50% and 80% of Area Median Income can continue to build savings in FSS escrow 

accounts. 
54 


29709.027

The Blunt-Reed bill makes sensible, streamlining improvements to allow FSS to expand and build on 

success. This complements HUD's work to improve the program administratively. This year, HUD has 

published a written guidebook about how to run a quality FSS program, based on the work of Compass 

Working Capital and others. This is available on the HUD website here. In addition, Policy 

Development and Research at HUD is continuing to evaluate the impact of FSS and will be publishing 

further studies. HUD Secretary Carson just stated in an editorial published last week that "We are 

taking a hard look at the way we provide rental assistance: it needs to be sustainable, reliable, and 

provide incentives for work and stable family formation." All of these activities can be mutually 

reinforcing as HUD works to improve the program, new affordable housing providers begin offering 

their residents a clear path to economic opportunity using the FSS model, and Policy Development and 

Research published rigorous research on what FSS can accomplish. 

You have posed thoughtful questions in calling this hearing and I commend you for starting this 

conversation. There are broader questions that this committee could explore about how housing 

assistance can best improve economic mobility in our society. You could take a holistic look at how job 

training, economic development programs and affordable housing can all work together in 

communities so families can get ahead. Where affordable housing is located has implications for 

families' access to quality schools and transportation to jobs. Neighborhood quality impacts the life 

outcomes for children. HPN would be happy to share information on our members' projects and work 

with you and your staff on these questions, but please begin with FSS. 

I encourage you to introduce and approve a House version of S. 1344 so that more than a fraction of 

assisted housing residents can benefit from the asset-building benefits of FSS. If new housing providers 

can adopt FSS for their residents, we can continue to amass evidence on what works to help residents 

achieve more success. This voluntary program could become a model for using the power of stable, 

affordable housing to help families achieve their dreams. It would be very impressive in a time of 

partisan division over so many issues for this Committee to come together around improvements and 

expansion of a program that makes a great deal of intuitive sense and gives families a tangible path to 

hope and opportunity. 

Thank you for inviting me, and I would be pleased to answer your questions. 
55 


29709.028

Written Testimony of Mr. Stacy L. Spann 

Executive Director 

Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County 

Before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services' 

Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance 

Overview of the Family Self-Sufficiency Program 

Wednesday, September 27,2017 
56 


29709.029

Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and members of the House 

Committee on Financial Services' Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance. Thank you for the 

opportunity to testify before you about the Department of Housing and Urban Development's 

(HUD) Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program and to share our approach and experiences with 

the FSS program at the local level. 

My name is Stacy Spann, and I am the Executive Director of the Housing Opportunities 

Commission of Montgomery County (HOC) in Montgomery County, Maryland. The Housing 

Opportunities Commission is the county's largest provider of high-quality, amenity-rich, 

affordable housing to low- and moderate-income households. As Montgomery County, 

Maryland's designated Public Housing Authority and Housing Finance Agency, we serve 

approximately 13,800 households through our housing programs, including administration of the 

federal Housing Choice Voucher program and HUD's other Section 8 programs. We also operate 

non-federal affordable housing programs, as well as finance and develop affordable units 

throughout the county. In our role as social Rousers, we take great pride in the enrichment 

programs and supportive services we provide and connect our customers with to help the folks 

we serve reach their fullest potential. HOC delivers robust workforce and education 

programming for adults and youth including our Fatherhood Initiative, a suite of educational 

opportunities for adults and youth we call HOC Academy, in addition to HUD's Family SelfSufficiency program. 

HOC's FSS program has transformed the lives of hundreds of families by providing 

career development support that helps HOC customers achieve increased self-sufficiency. 

Participants receive comprehensive case management and service connections that support them 

in gaining and improving employment through one-on-one assessments, goal setting, referrals, 

skills training, and education. Since HOC's FSS program began in 1993, we have graduated 938 

participants from the program. 

However, HOC's FSS program has evolved significantly since it began. In 2015, the 

program had a shift in leadership which compelled the agency to look inward and reevaluate the 

way we were administering the program. We wanted to ensure that enrolling customers in the 

FSS program and guiding them through the process was not just proforma. We are not interested 

in simply checking the box and tallying numbers. We took a step back and asked ourselves, 

2 
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29709.030

"What are we doing to help our customers achieve progress? Are we requiring people to take 

meaningful strides toward self-sufficiency in order to graduate?" We understand that making a 

decision to change your life is difficult. As an agency, we want to make certain that we give our 

best effort to help our customers do this deep work. If participants were graduating only to find 

they were accessing emergency rental assistance services or facing eviction a few months later, 

then we were not doing our jobs, and we were not doing our clients justice. 

HOC took time to reassess its FSS processes and created a more comprehensive case 

management. FSS case managers became responsible for tracking families as they came up for 

recertification--ensuring they were familiar with all aspects of a participating family's progress. 

We evaluated the strength and quality of our partnerships with service providers. At the end, we 

offered participants the opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to the FSS program and the 

new guidelines for setting goals toward graduation. We lost many participants, but gained 

individuals who were prepared to be part of a program that was viable and meaningful, that they 

believed would help propel themselves and their families closer to their personal goals. 

This process took a year before we re-opened new admissions to the program. As an 

agency, I do not pretend that this process was easy. It is not always easy for organizations or 

people within organizations to both self-assess and be honest. Our program in many respects 

mirrored the experiences of the national program and HUD's own efforts to illustrate the 

program's outcomes and impacts. 

As a result of HOC's program restructuring, our 2017 graduation ceremony, held just last 

week on September 21 51, celebrated the accomplishments of 63 FSS graduates. Where 52 percent 

of graduates were unemployed at enrollment I 00 percent were employed by graduation having at 

least 12 consecutive months of employment. As a group, the average earned income of 

participants more than quadrupled-from $8, I 06 to $37,393 annually. When accounting for 

federal entitlement and other income support payments, the average household income for 

participants upon graduation was $42,520 annually. Nearly 20 percent increased their earnings 

enough to become independent of housing assistance and five graduates achieved the American 

dream of homeownership--and as an agency with the resources to more fully support 

homeownership through our own mortgage products, we want to sec if we can do more. 

3 
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29709.031

While our graduates have accomplished much, numbers without context cannot fully 

convey the extent of their experience. Through the process of resetting our FSS program, there 

are a few things we have come to learn: 

Self-sufficiency is a continuum and one size cannot fit all. Participants come to the 

FSS program with different experiences and at various stages in their life. To truly help 

customers achieve the goals they set for themselves, we must recognize the diversity of their 

experience and be ready and willing to meet them where they are on that continuum. We also 

must respect the personalized nature of developing goals and what success looks like for each 

FSS participant. Honoring that diversity is crucial for helping participants establish challenging, 

reachable and fulfilling goals. But it is also essential that we challenge ourselves as 

administrators to create an FSS program that is flexible enough to be "right-sized" for every 

community in which it operates and every participant it serves. That means understanding and 

respecting how progress and success will look different for different participants as well as 

different communities. 

For example, while HOC's 2017 graduates accomplished an amazing feat by more than 

quadrupling their average earned income, that success is still relative to their fellow county 

residents in Montgomery County and their ability to achieve what others may judge to be full 

economic self-sufficiency-and off federal housing assistance completely. The area median 

income for a family of four in Montgomery County is $110,300. 1 The hourly wage required to 

afford a two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent in Montgomery County is $33.58, which 

means a household must earn nearly $70,000 a year to afford to rent in the private marketplace 2 

While the increased average annual earned income of $37,393 by our clients is a tremendous 

personal milestone, it is also an extremely far cry from full economic self-sufficiency, 

independent of other government supports in our community. Similarly, it is important to 

recognize that successful program participation will manifest differently in communities and 

regions with high concentrations of people that may be unable to work--communities where 

there are significant numbers of persons with physical or other disabilities or elderly persons. 

1 National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) (20 17). Out of Reach. 2 ld. 

4 
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29709.032

We believe HUD's acknowledgement of diversity in participant experiences is essential 

to accurately and meaningfully measuring outcomes in the Family Self-Sufficiency program. The 

efficiency and effectiveness of an FSS program cannot rest solely on the number of people who 

pass through the doors. Success must be measured from where the graduate begins and chart the 

depth of their experience with the program-higher education accomplished, homeownership 

achieved, children sent to college. While this approach will not lend itself easily to the 

comparison of program success across localities and regions, it is the key to creating a genuine 

roadmap of progress for our participants. In addition, agencies that do the hard work of 

revamping their basket of services, resources and supports should not be penalized for having 

done so. 

Doing the deep work required to serve FSS participants takes time and effort. Bnt 

serving less can mean more. Simply, it takes a tremendous amount of work to assist FSS 

participants to move from one milestone to the next and meaningfully move along the continuum 

of self-sufficiency. It is the rare person among us who got it right the first time, made a difficult 

climb without the help of others, pulling themselves out of a hole that at first glance seemed 

insurmountable. It takes people to serve people. That means that case workers, mentors, and 

tutors must consistently touch clients as they move from one hurdle to the next to chart progress, 

and provide support and encouragement along the way. HOC's FSS program recognizes and 

prioritizes these interactions by requiring case workers to continue follow-ups with graduates six 

and 12 months after they achieve graduation. 

However, engagement at this level means that coordinators and case workers must stretch 

themselves to make certain each client gets the level of touch they require to move forward. That 

may mean that, in order to do the deep work it takes to achieve positive outcomes, we ultimately 

serve a lower number of clients but with a higher-quality experience. We urge HUD to carefully 

consider this approach, and to employ flexibility in defining criteria for measuring successful 

program performance. 

Breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty calls for a holistic approach. The 

Family Self-Sufficiency program is about moving participants and families toward economic 

independence and long-term success. While coordinators and case workers are primarily focused 

on goals and accomplishments of FSS participants, it is critical to connect all family members to 

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services when and where available. Once a household is in HOC housing or in the FSS program, 

it opens the entire family up to our other basket of services. It ensures we are taking a twogenerational approach to guiding families toward economic stability and opportunity. HOC's 

FSS program provides training for participants that encourages long-term financial planning and 

stability-requiring the completion of courses in tinancial capability and building credit-in 

addition to providing access to programming that supports educational success for the next 

generation-homework clubs, STEM camps, coding courses and camps targeted toward girls, 

scholarships, summer internship employment opportunities and much more. In determining 

which metrics are relevant for gauging FSS participant progress, there is an opportunity to 

consider the participation of children and other related household members in educational and 

enrichment programming as a key outcome measurement for success. 

HOC supports putting families on a real path toward economic mobility and stability. In 

order to achieve this objective in the Family Self-Sufficiency program, metrics and 

measurements for participant and program success must meaningfully consider the diverse 

experiences and varying needs of participating families. It will require careful introspection 

about our willingness to do the hard work to implement the flexibility that fosters, instead of 

frustrates, innovative solutions and serves participants more deeply. 1 applaud this Subcommittee 

for taking an interest in the Family Self-Sufficiency program and for looking for opportunities to 

improve its effectiveness and invest in the lives of many of the country's most vulnerable 

households. I hope this hearing serves as the first of many public discussions about how we can 

all work smarter to help individuals achieve the best possible outcomes for themselves and their 

families. 

In addition to my testimony today, I encourage members to listen to the stories and 

successes of some of this year's FSS graduates, through video testimony found here: 

2017 FSS Graduate Evelyn's Story: http://bit.lv12hsiawX 

2017 FSS Graduate Iya's Story: http://hit.ly/2flfFrM 

2017 FSS Graduate Yvette's Story: http://bit.ly/2hrHRxE 

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