Section 811 - Vendor Payments for Transitional Housing Counted as Income

Q. Is a definition for "transitional housing payment" available? If it isn't, can a State agency use a definition that exists for another Department?

A. We do not plan to define transitional housing payments. States may use a definition that exists for another Department. According to the preamble to regulations published February 3, 1992 (57 FR 3961), the Department decided not to define "transitional housing" in implementing the exclusion for transitional housing payments in section 1721 of the Mickey Leland Memorial Domestic Hunger Relief Act because a flexible definition was already available. The preamble indicates that transitional housing was defined in section 422(12)(A) of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act as housing which has the purpose of facilitating the movement of homeless individuals or families to independent living within a reasonable amount of time, as determined by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Section 422(12)(A) also provides that transitional housing includes housing primarily designed to serve deinstitutionalized homeless individuals and other homeless individuals with mental disabilities, and homeless families with children. State agencies may use the HUD definition in making case-by-case determinations as to whether housing for homeless households is transitional or permanent. The preamble indicates that the term would not be defined in February 3, 1992 regulations, and we do not propose to define it in regulations implementing the PRWORA.

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