HUD is spending time on the road over the fall and winter months to encourage PHAs to get ready for the transition to NSPIRE. Emphasys Software was able to attend one of these sessions on Monday, October 31, 2022, in Cleveland, OH.
The sessions presented were informative and important as we all move towards the NSPIRE inspection methodology. We encourage each of you to attend one of these sessions where you will hear from the HUD experts on this important and timely topic.
If you are interested in attending a session, please go to this website and register for the one that best suits your needs.
HUD has made it clear that NSPIRE will be implemented in CY 2023. The LIPH Program is projected to go-live in April 2023. The remaining housing programs are projected to go-live in October 2023.
There are milestones that need to be met by HUD before these deadlines can become a reality. They will need all their implementation notices to be presented in a Final Rule before they can move forward. The NSP
IRE Standards Notice was already put out as proposed with comments ending in August 2022. HUD is working on the Final Rule to be presented to OMB for review and publishing. HUD is working on the Scoring Notice which will outline how LIPH properties will be scored during an NSPIRE inspection. The required implementation notices have been outlined for you below.
The focus of NSPIRE is to take away from cosmetic findings and focus the findings back on the safety of the unit. The inspectable areas will be identified as the Unit, the Inside, and the Outside of a unit.
The Key Focus Areas of the inspection are listed here for your reference.
The NSPIRE inspection standards will be used by all housing programs replacing the current UPCS and HQS inspection protocols. There will now be one standard for all housing programs. The replacement for UPCS will still use a scoring method to determine if it passes or fails. The replacement for HQS will use a strictly pass/fail methodology for each NSPIRE standard.
We encourage each of you to visit the NSPIRE site where you can view the NSPIRE Standards and begin to familiarize yourself and your staff with how these differ from your current inspection methodologies.
NSPIRE Standards | HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Emphasys Software is working closely with HUD on the NSPIRE project. In the upcoming months, HUD will be sharing the technical specifications and decision tree methodologies with software vendors so we can properly build the software response in Elite and on our handheld devices. Emphasys is already preparing for CY 2023 with a response to the anticipated go-live dates for NSPIRE.