We audited the City of Cedar Rapids, IA Property Acquisition Program. We selected the City for review based on a citizen’s hotline complaint and the amount of disaster funding received by the City. During fiscal years 2008 through 2011, the City’s property acquisition program was awarded more than $125 million in disaster funding. Our audit objective was to determine whether the City (1) expended its CDBG disaster recovery grant funds for...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the State of Iowa’s (State) business rental assistance program (program) funded by Community Development Block Grant disaster funds. Our objective was to determine whether the State ensured that the City of Cedar Rapids (City) provided rental assistance to eligible businesses based on appropriate leases. The State did not implement adequate controls...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the State of Iowa’s (State) Community Development Block Grant Disaster Assistance Funds. Our audit objective was to determine whether the State ensured that the City of Cedar Rapids provided disaster assistance funds to only eligible businesses and that these businesses did not receive duplicate Federal benefits. The State misspent more than $10.5...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited the Housing Choice Voucher program of the Des Moines Municipal Housing Agency (Agency) to determine whether the Agency (1) properly considered family composition and reasonable accommodation requests when applying payment standards and (2) took appropriate action when the tenants' files had indications of unreported income. We found that...