SECTION 8: PHAs: Follow These 3 Steps To Show Your Work Before Terminating Benefits

Warning: Just because a hearing officer okays termination doesn't make it lawful.

Before terminating someone's Section 8 benefits, make sure you can show the court that you considered other remedies, or risk losing your case.

Pamela Carter took Lynn Housing Authority (LHA) to the Northeast Division of the Housing Court Department (Housing Court), contesting LHA's termination of her Section 8 rent-subsidy assistance. The Housing Court sided with Carter, annulled and set aside the termination of her Section 8 rent assistance, and ordered that LHA reinstate it. LHA appealed, and the appellate court reversed the Housing Court's decision, siding with LHA.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts granted Carter's request for further review of the case. The Supreme Judicial Court agreed with the Housing Court's original ruling, stating, "the LHA hearing officer who upheld the termination of the plaintiff's Section 8 benefits erred by failing to indicate that he had considered 'all relevant circumstances' as specified in 24 C.F.R. § 982.552(c)(2)(i)(2007)."

Title 24 C.F.R. § 982.552(c)(2)(i) (2007), states: "The PHA may consider all relevant circumstances such as the seriousness of the case, the extent of participation or culpability of individual family members, mitigating circumstances related to......