We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Residential Care Facilities’ (ORCF), oversight of Section 232 residential care facilities’ mortgage insurance program.  We performed this audit because HUD-insured residential care facility loan defaults were rising.  As of June 2024, 167 of the 3,670 HUD-insured Section 232 borrowers, or nearly 5 percent, defaulted on their mortgages.  These 167…

In August 2024, we issued an audit report on the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) fraud risk management practices, finding that HCD was not adequately prepared to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud due to the lack of focus it placed on fraud risks and establishing a robust fraud risk management framework for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act funding for the Emergency Solutions…

We recently issued an audit report on the City and County of Honolulu’s (City) fraud risk management practices, which determined the grantee did not adequately develop a fraud risk management framework for the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding provided for the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud (Audit Report No. 2024-LA-1002, issued August 6, 2024). This audit follows…

We audited New York City (NYC) Department of Social Services (DSS) with the objective of evaluating DSS’ fraud risk management practices for its Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (ESG CARES Act) funded activities and assessed the maturity of its efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud.  Fraud within activities funded by the ESG CARES Act can lead to significant financial losses,…

This report was issued from a series of six reports taking an in-depth look at how six communities used the pandemic funding they received to address a wide range of needs. This report focused on Jicarilla Apache Nation Reservation in New Mexico with a detailed look at six of the 42 pandemic programs that provided funding to the community. This report was led by the Pandemic Relief Accountability Committee (PRAC) in coordination with HUD OIG as…

This report was issued from a developing series of six reports taking an in-depth look at how six communities used the pandemic funding they received to address a wide range of needs. This report focused on White Earth Nation Reservation in Minnesota with a detailed look at ten of the 56 pandemic programs that provided funding to the community. This report was led by the Pandemic Relief Accountability Committee (PRAC) in coordination with HUD…

This report was issued from a developing series of six reports taking an in-depth look at how six communities used the pandemic funding they received to address a wide range of needs. This report focused on Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with a detailed look at six of the 27 pandemic programs that provided funding to the community. This report was led by the Pandemic Relief Accountability Committee (PRAC) in coordination with HUD OIG as a project…

We audited HUD and its grantees’ monitoring of subrecipients and contractors in HUD’s Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (ESG-CV) program to assess subrecipient monitoring in the program.  ESG and ESG-CV grantees often rely on subrecipients and contractors to carry out ESG-CV-funded activities on behalf of the grantees, and are required to monitor subrecipients to ensure that the purpose of…

This report was issued from a developing series of six reports taking an in-depth look at how six communities used the pandemic funding they received to address a wide range of needs. This report focused on Sheridan County, Nebraska, with a detailed look at six of the 31 pandemic programs that provided funding to the community. This report was led by the Pandemic Relief Accountability Committee in coordination with HUD OIG as a project…

We audited the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Budget and Fiscal Services’ and Department of Community Services’ (City) fraud risk management practices for its Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (ESG CARES Act) program with the objective of assessing the maturity of the City’s fraud risk management framework that encompasses control activities to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud.…

We audited the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with the objective of evaluating HCD’s fraud risk management practices for its Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (ESG CARES Act) program and assessing the maturity of its efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud.  Fraudulent activity in the ESG CARES Act program can lead to significant financial losses,…

This report was issued from a developing series of six reports taking an in-depth look at how six communities used the pandemic funding they received to address a wide range of needs. This report focused on Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with a detailed look at eight of the 45 pandemic programs that provided funding to the community. This report was led by the Pandemic Relief Accountability Committee (PRAC) in coordination with HUD OIG as a project…

We performed an audit examining HUD’s efforts to prevent duplication of benefits when using Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery and Mitigation funds.  Our objective was to determine how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assesses the adequacy of grantee procedures to prevent a duplication of benefits, both before and after grant execution. HUD certified grantees’ high-level processes for…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Native American Programs’ (ONAP) coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) recovery programs.  We performed this audit to provide HUD with insight and a nationwide perspective on the challenges that grantees experienced with those programs.  Our audit objectives were to identify 1) the information, guidance, and training HUD provided to the grantees for the…

The Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) traditionally uses onsite monitoring to monitor its grantees.  However, in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, CPD shifted to 100 percent remote monitoring.  Monitoring was momentarily paused in fiscal year (FY) 2020 and was reinstituted remotely in FY 2021. To support its remote monitoring approach, CPD launched the Grantee Document Exchange (GDX), an externally…

We conducted an attestation review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s drug control accounting for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2022.  We performed this review pursuant to section 705(d) of Public Law 105-277, which requires National Drug Control Program agencies to submit to the Director of ONDCP a detailed accounting of all funds spent by the agencies for National Drug Control Program activities during the…

We performed a review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) monitoring and tracking of Continuum of Care (CoC) grantees that have been slow to spend their grant funds.  Our objectives were to determine whether HUD was effectively tracking and monitoring CoC grant spending and to determine the impact of COVID-19 on CoC grantee spending.HUD generally tracked and monitored its grantees; however, it did not prioritize…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) (ESG-CV) program. Our audit objective was to determine what challenges ESG-CV grant recipients faced in implementing the program and using grant funds. We used a survey questionnaire to gather feedback and insight directly from the 362 recipients of ESG-CV grants. At the time we…

We conducted a limited review of nursing home owners to identify their operational challenges and needs of nursing homes in responding to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.  Our objective was to determine the biggest challenges operators of Section 232 nursing home facilities face related to the COVID-19 pandemic and whether nursing homes are prepared to meet their future financial obligations.  Most of the owners who…

We audited the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program.  The audit was initiated because of the homelessness crisis in the City of Los Angeles, which has the highest number of unsheltered people in the United States.  In addition, the Los Angeles city controller issued a report in 2019, criticizing the Authority for falling short of City of Los Angeles homeless outreach goals.  (See Background…