Housing Counseling Process Evaluation and Design of ... - HUD User

share of counselors with four-year college degrees and agencies that serve mostly pre-purchase clients
have the lowest.
Most counselors have several years of counseling experience, and about half of all counselors have at
least six years of experience. The average across all counselors is eight years of experience. In
addition to years of experience, most housing counselors and educators have some formal training or
certifications in the housing counseling field. The most common source of training is
NeighborWorks® America, followed by HUD, state agencies, financial institutions, and NFCC.
Most of intermediaries require counselors to receive some formal training in housing counseling
within six months to a year of starting to provide services, but requirements vary substantially. The
SHFAs interviewed are somewhat less likely than the intermediaries to require formal training or
certifications for counselors in their network. In discussing counselor training and qualifications,
several intermediaries and SHFAs said that they were planning to implement the standards developed
by NCHEC, even though achieving these standards could be challenging for affiliates.
The survey results suggest that level of expertise or training of staff is a significant problem for about
two-thirds of the agencies surveyed. Comments on the survey suggest that agency concerns about
staff expertise and training center around the cost of training and access to training.
Overall, about one third of the agencies surveyed identified staff retention as an extremely or
moderately significant problem. Staff retention is a more common problem for agencies serving more
than 5,000 clients per year. Agency comments on the survey suggest that the biggest concern is
agencies’ inability to compensate trained and experienced staff sufficiently.
Chapter 8. Characteristics of Housing Counselors 139