The East St. Louis Housing Authority will receive $4.9 million in Recovery Act funding to carry out capital and management activities at its public housing developments. HUD's Office of Inspector General (OIG) evaluated the Authority's capacity to administer its Recovery Act funds. The OIG found several weaknesses that could adversely affect its capacity to administer these funds and recommended that HUD require corrective…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Inspector reviewed Cook County’s (County) Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The review was part of the activities in our fiscal year 2009 annual audit plan. We selected the County based upon the results of our three previous audits of the County’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME). Our objective was to determine whether the County had the capacity to…

We audited the State of Washington’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The audit was part of our fiscal year 2009 annual audit plan. We selected the State because it was responsible for the distribution of funds to the entitlement areas, as well as to nonentitlement areas for the state of Washington. Our objective was to determine whether the State’s Program implementation was compliant with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Inspector General reviewed the front-end risk assessment (assessment) of the Green Retrofit Program (program) for Multifamily Housing for HUD. Our objective was to determine whether the assessment complied with the Office of Management and Budget’s guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act); the Recovery Act’s Updated…

We conducted a review of the City of Little Falls, New York’s (the City) Small Cities Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), and HOME Programs administered by its Urban Renewal Agency (URA). We selected the City for review based on a hotline complaint that alleges mismanagement of HUD funding for the CDBG and HOME programs administered by the City and its URA. The objectives of the review were to determine the merits of the hotline…

The City of Fort Worth (City) is scheduled to receive $10.85 million in Recovery Act funding. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a memorandum on the City’s capacity to administer these funds. We reported the City had a history of failing to meet regulatory requirements in an efficient or timely manner. The City needs to strengthen its capacity to adequately administer…

We audited the City of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s (City) community planning and development program. On March 6, 2009, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded the City $1.1 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) for its community planning and development program. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget directed the Inspectors General to perform audits to ensure that…

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD) Office of Inspector General has issued a memorandum on the Travis County (Texas) Housing Authority’s (Authority) capacity to administer Recovery Act funds. The memorandum reports that the Authority lacks capacity to administer ARRA public housing capital funds. The OIG recommended that HUD increase monitoring and oversight of the Authority’s financial and program activities, and…

For the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) front-end risk assessment (FERA) for the new Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing program (HPRP), we wanted to determine whether the FERA complied with the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) guidance for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act); the Recovery Act’s streamlined FERA process; and HUD Handbook 1840.1, REV-3, Departmental…

We performed a review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of public housing agencies’ unrestricted and restricted Section 8 administrative fee reserves. We initiated this review because in our audits of two housing authorities, neither agency was able to clearly account for its administrative fee reserve funds and demonstrate that they were used appropriately. Our objective was to determine…

We audited the State of Mississippi's (State) administration of the $5.058 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) disaster recovery funds provided to the State in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The State allocated $2.2 billion to help homeowners in southern Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina. Our audit objective was to determine whether the State ensured that applicants were eligible to receive…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Inspector General audited the City of Cincinnati's (City) Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The audit was part of the activities in our fiscal year 2009 annual audit plan. We selected the City based upon the results of our three previous audits of the City's HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME). Our objective was to determine whether the City had…

We are conducting an audit of the Lackawanna Municipal Housing Authority’s (Authority) administration of its capital fund program. We selected this auditee because the Authority pledged its future capital fund appropriations to perform a special project as part of the Capital Fund Financing Program. Specifically, the Authority incurred a $4.25 million long-term liability to perform lead-based paint abatement and modernization work at…

We completed a corrective action verification of HUD’s actions in implementing portions of Audit Memorandum 98-AO-219-1804, issued September 24, 1998; Upfront Grant for Ridgecrest Heights Apartments, CEMI-Ridgecrest, Inc., Washington, DC. The specific objective of this corrective action verification review was to determine if HUD ensured the repayment of excess proceeds from the sale of townhomes located at Ridgecrest Heights…

We performed a corrective action verification of HUD's actions in implementing recommendation 1F from our audit of the Housing Authority of Maricopa County's Mixed Finance Development Activities (Rose Terrace and Maricopa Revitalization), Audit Report 2005-LA-1002, issued March 14, 2005. The purpose of the corrective action verification was to determine whether HUD officials appropriately closed audit recommendation 1F in…

We audited the State of Mississippi's (State) administration of the $5.058 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) disaster recovery funds provided to the State in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The State allocated $2.2 billion to help homeowners in southern Mississippi recover from Hurricane Katrina. During our audit on grant eligibility, we identified a few possible duplicate payments when reviewing the State…

At the request of the Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH), we performed a limited review of a random sample of 112 March and April 2009 Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP) payments for Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita evacuees. The objective was to verify whether the authorized tenants lived in the residences in March and April 2009. Testing identified 20 instances of potentially ineligible payments totaling $9,478 and…

We performed an audit of the Orchard Court project, a Section 236 multifamily property, located in Bath, Maine. As part of our audit, we reviewed subsidy payments made to Orchard Court from Bath and Brunswick, Maine, Housing Authorities (Authorities). Our objective was to determine whether Section 8 voucher program subsidies paid to Orchard Court from the Authorities were for basic rent, rather than market rent. Basic rent is the…

We performed a review of HUD's recent invitation to submit applications (invitation) for performance-based contract administrator services for Southern California to be effective June 1, 2009, and its related annual contributions contract (contract) due to a complaint and concerns that this activity may have been inconsistent with agreed-upon management decisions on Audit Report 2007-SE-0001. The purpose of this review was to…