While conducting an ongoing audit of the Philadelphia Housing Authority’s (Authority) management of lead-based paint hazards in its public housing units, we identified a significant gap in HUD’s program requirements related to safe work practices, which we believe requires immediate action by HUD.  We identified that the Authority determined a substantial percentage of maintenance and hazard reduction work performed on surfaces with…

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) requires all federal agencies to conduct independent security technical verification testing on a sampling of information systems annually.  In conjunction with our fiscal year 2021 FISMA evaluation (2021-OE-0001), we conducted a targeted security testing assessment of sample systems that resulted in a Topic Brief.  The objective of this application vulnerability…

The brief provides an update to the original 2018 topic brief, and highlights key challenges faced by HUD in managing and improving its IT program.  The brief is not based on new work, but is a summary of 83 reports and 788 recommendations from past HUD OIG and GAO reports. It discusses the present IT environment at HUD, previously identified and new IT-related challenges, and HUD’s efforts and progress in addressing these challenges…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Inspector General assessed what information servicers of mortgage loans that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insures were providing on their public facing websites to borrowers regarding forbearance.  On March 27, 2020, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) to provide economic relief to individuals and…

This topic brief summarized the current status of all information technology (IT) and privacy program recommendations issued to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by the Office of Inspector General’s Office of Evaluation, Information Technology Evaluations Division (iTED) from Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 through 2019.  The report breaks down numbers of recommendations by functional areas and analyzes the progress made…

This management alert identified that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is failing to meet basic records management and privacy requirements for over 1 billion records containing PII.  Specifically, HUD is unable to identify, categorize, and adequately secure all of its electronic and paper records that contain personally identifiable information (PII).  These issues were identified during the fiscal year (FY) 2019…

Topic briefs are a tool we use to keep officials within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) informed of challenges so that its leadership can be better prepared to address them.  This topic brief describes our observations of the time it takes the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) to complete risk-based scoring.  HUD implemented its risk analysis process to help CPD field offices identify and…

Topic briefs are a tool we use to keep officials within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) informed of challenges so that its leadership can be better prepared to address them. This topic brief expands upon two reports we issued concerning residential care facility inspections. The first was an evaluation of the Office of Residential Care Facilities (ORCF) use of Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) scores in…

The purpose of this report is to consolidate and provide insight into cross-cutting management and performance challenges facing financial sector regulatory organizations as identified by members of the Council of Inspectors General on Financial Oversight (CIGFO). The Inspectors General within CIGFO report annually on the Top Management and Performance Challenges (TMPC) affecting their respective organizations.  This report reflects…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed concerns from a complaint within HUD regarding the physical condition of HUD-insured residential care facilities (RCF).  This review is part of an ongoing effort of the Office of Inspector General (OIG).  At least 10 RCFs had received a score below 31 out of a possible 100 on their most recent Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC)…

This briefing paper highlights challenges the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) faces in monitoring nonbanks and outlines our past, current, and future efforts to help it address those challenges. We are highlighting these challenges so HUD leadership is aware of and can be better prepared to address them.  OIG is focusing on Ginnie Mae’s capacity to monitor nonbanks with an ongoing audit.