Act means the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 (42 U.S.C. 1437 et seq.)

Alternative management entity (AME) is a receiver, private contractor, private manager, or any other entity that is under contract with a PHA, under a management agreement with a PHA, or that is otherwise duly appointed or contracted (for example, by court order or agency action), to manage all or part of a PHA's operations.

Assessed fiscal year is the PHA fiscal year that has been/is being assessed under PHAS.

Assistant Secretary means the Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing.

Capital Fund-troubled refers to a PHA that does not meet the minimum passing score of 5 points or 50 percent under the Capital Fund indicator.

Corrective Action Plan means a plan, as provided in § 902.73(a), that is developed by a PHA that specifies the actions to be taken, including timetables, that shall be required to correct deficiencies identified under any of the PHAS indicators and subindicators, and identified as a result of a PHAS assessment, when a memorandum of agreement (MOA) is not required.

Criticality means one of five levels that reflect the relative importance of the deficiencies for an inspectable item.

Days mean calendar days, unless otherwise specified.

Decent, safe, sanitary housing and in good repair (DSS/GR) is HUD's standard for acceptable basic housing conditions and the level to which a PHA is required to maintain its public housing.

Deficiency means any finding or determination that requires corrective action, or any score below 60 percent of the available points for the physical condition, financial condition, or management operations indicators, and any score below 50 percent for the Capital Fund indicator. In the context of physical condition and physical inspection in subpart B of this part, “deficiency” means a specific problem, as described in the Dictionary of Deficiency Definitions, such as a hole in a wall or a damaged refrigerator in the kitchen that can be recorded for inspectable items.

Dictionary of Deficiency Definitions means the Dictionary of Deficiency Definitions document that is utilized in the PHAS Physical Condition Scoring procedure, and which contains specific definitions of each severity level for deficiencies under this subpart.

Direct Funded RMC (DF-RMC) means a Resident Management Corporation to which HUD directly provides operating and capital assistance under the provisions of 24 CFR 964.225(h).

Inspectable areas (or area) mean any of the five major components of public housing that are inspected, which are: Site, building exteriors, building systems, dwelling units, and common areas.

Inspectable item means the individual parts, such as walls, kitchens, bathrooms, and other things, to be inspected in an inspectable area. The number of inspectable items varies for each area. Weights are assigned to each item as shown in the Item Weights and Criticality Levels document.

Item Weights and Criticality Levels document means the Item Weights and Criticality Levels document that is utilized in the Physical Condition scoring procedure, and which contains a listing of the inspectable items, item weights, observable deficiencies, criticality levels and values, and severity levels and values that apply to this subpart.

Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is defined in § 902.75(b).

Normalized weights mean weights adjusted to reflect the inspectable items or areas that are present to be inspected.

Resident Management Corporation (RMC) is defined in 24 CFR 964.7.

Score for a project under the physical condition inspection means a number on a scale of 0 to 100 that reflects the physical condition of a project, inspectable area, or subarea. To record a health or safety deficiency, a specific designation (such as a letter - a, b, or c) is added to the project score that highlights that a health or safety deficiency (or deficiencies) exists. If smoke detectors are noted as inoperable or missing, another designation (such as an asterisk (*)) is added to the project score. Although inoperable or missing smoke detectors do not reduce the score, they are fire safety hazards and are included in the Notification of Exigent and Fire Safety Hazards Observed Deficiency list that the inspector gives the PHA's project representative.

Severity under the physical condition inspection means one of three levels, level 1 (minor), level 2 (major), and level 3 (severe), that reflect the extent of the damage or problem associated with each deficiency. The Item Weights and Criticality Levels document shows the severity levels for each deficiency. Based on the severity of each deficiency, the score is reduced. Points deducted are calculated as the product of the item weight and the values for criticality and severity. For specific definitions of each severity level, see the Dictionary of Deficiency Definitions.

Statistically valid sample refers to a scientific sampling performed in a rigorous, random manner.

Subarea means an inspectable area for one building. For example, if a project has more than one building, each inspectable area for each building in the project is treated as a subarea.

Unit-weighted average means the average of the PHA's individual indicator scores, weighted by the number of units in each project, divided by the total number of units in all of the projects of the PHA. In order to compute a unit-weighted average, an individual project score for a particular indicator is multiplied by the number of units in each project to determine a “weighted value.” For example, for a PHA with two projects, one with 200 units and a score of 90, and the other with 100 units and a score of 60, the unit-weighted average score for the indicator would be (200 × 90 + 100 × 60)/300 = 80.