Description: Public corruption occurs when a public official misuses their position for personal benefit. While most public servants are honest, even a small amount of public corruption carried out by a dishonest few can have a devastating effect on the public’s trust in Government.

Identity theft is a common fraud scheme that can negatively impact HUD programs and its beneficiaries. ID theft happens when someone steals your personal information or create false identities to commit fraud, such as using a stolen identity to apply for and illegally receive HUD benefits.

Did you know there is a law that protects families from exposure to lead from paint, dust, and soil? The Residential Lead-Based Paint Reduction Act, also known as Title X, was enacted in 1992 and includes provisions focused on educating the public on lead-based health risks and the proper steps to abate or remove the hazards of lead-based paint.

Did you know, the Freedom of Information Act, also known as FOIA, is a law that gives any person the right to request Federal agency records. The FOIA also requires Federal agencies to make certain types of information available to the public without the need to submit a request, such as frequently requested records.

Did you know sexual harassment by a landlord, maintenance worker, or anyone with authority, control over, or official access to your rental property is against the law? No one should have to choose between having a roof over their head and the threat of being sexually harassed or sexually assaulted by their housing provider.

Ensure that it obtains a separate interest-bearing depository account for its program participants’ escrow funds in accordance with HUD’s requirements.

Ensure that its staff is appropriately trained and familiar with HUD’s requirements and its program action plan regarding the administration of its program to ensure that (1) participants’ contracts of participation and individual training and services plans are properly updated and contain the necessary signatures; (2) changes in participants’ files are properly identified and notated; and (3) participants are notified of changes in their…

Develop and implement procedures and controls to ensure that (1) documentation required by HUD and its own action plan is correctly completed, documented, and updated; (2) escrow account balances are correctly calculated and disbursed; and (3) escrow accounts and disbursements are fully supported to ensure that $127,544 in coordinator grant funds is appropriately used over the next year.

Determine the amount of the $387,507 in coordinator grant funds that was appropriately earned by the Authority for meeting requirements. The funds that are determined to be unearned should be reimbursed to HUD from non-Federal funds.

Review the Authority’s graduate documentation and adjust the Authority’s minimum program size as necessary.

Review the Authority’s Section Eight Management Assessment Program scores for the Family Self-Sufficiency program and adjust as necessary.

Provide technical assistance and guidance to the Authority to ensure that it properly administers its Family Self-Sufficiency program.

Reimburse its program $34,666 from non-Federal funds ($21,990 $12,676 in administrative fees) for the overpayment of housing assistance due to inappropriate calculations of housing assistance.

Reimburse the appropriate households $1,265 from program funds for the underpayment of housing assistance due to inappropriate calculations.

Pursue collection from the applicable households or reimburse its program $9,644 from non-Federal funds for the overpayment of housing assistance due to unreported or underreported income.

Support or reimburse its program $1,666 from non-Federal funds for the unsupported payments of housing assistance cited in this finding.

Implement adequate procedures and controls to ensure that (1) housing assistance payments are appropriately calculated and supported, (2) repayment agreements are created to recover overpaid housing assistance when unreported income is discovered during the examination process, and (3) annual reexaminations are completed in a timely manner to ensure that $322,550 in program funds is appropriately used for future payments.

We recommend that the General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development develop and implement a quality review process at the headquarters level to ensure consistent compliance with its policy for risk analysis, to include but not be limited to reviewing supporting documentation for conclusions drawn.

We recommend that the General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, develop and implement a policy requiring field offices to rate grantees of at least medium risk that have not been monitored in their respective program area within the last 3 years on factors that require assessments of capacity, program complexity, and monitoring findings resulting in repayment or grant reductions.

We recommend that the General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, develop and implement guidance for field offices to maintain supporting documentation in their official files with an adequate explanation of procedures performed to verify risk scores assigned, which could include upgrading CPD’s systems to allow for the attachment of supporting documentation for risk analyses.