We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) technical assistance for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program. The review was part of the activities in our fiscal year 2012 annual audit plan. We initiated the review based upon a congressional request. Our objective was to determine whether HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development sufficiently tracked Program technical assistance activities, including technical assistance activities for community housing development organizations.

HUD’s Office did not have a centralized system or database that allowed it to sufficiently track all Program technical assistance activities and efficiently and effectively provide information on completed activities. Therefore, we requested information and documentation from HUD’s Office regarding the specific details for all national and local activities that were completed from October 1, 2009, through August 31, 2011. To expedite the collection and delivery of the requested information and documentation, HUD’s Office decided to request the information and documentation for all activities from the technical assistance providers. However, we determined that we could not rely on the accuracy and completeness of the information and documentation provided by the providers.

We recommend that HUD’s Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Community Planning and Development implement adequate procedures and controls to ensure that HUD's Office (1) uses the tracking mechanisms within HUD’s systems to sufficiently track all technical assistance activities regarding the Program once HUD’s OneCPD Integrated Practitioner Assistance System is fully implemented, and (2) sufficiently tracks all technical assistance activities regarding the Program until it fully implements HUD’s OneCPD Integrated Practitioner Assistance System.