We reviewed the City of Beaumont’s (City) Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (Program). Our objective was to determine whether the City ensured that its Program complied with Recovery Act and U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program expenditure and reporting requirements.

The City should strengthen its controls over its Program to better comply with Recovery Act requirements. Specifically, it should improve controls over the timely obligation of funds, eligibility of participants, and monitoring of subrecipients. This lack of timely obligation of funds may cost the City’s program approximately $215,000. These conditions occurred because the City did not develop policies and procedures specifically for its Program to provide appropriate guidance to the subrecipients.

We recommended that the Director, Houston, TX Office of Community Planning and Development, require the City to provide support or repay approximately $215,000 of funds and implement necessary controls to better manage its Program and demonstrate more effectively its compliance with requirements. Also, we recommend that if the City cannot support the obligation of funds that HUD recapture and rescind the $214,753 in deobligated funds and deposit those funds with the U. S. Treasury in accordance with the Recovery Act, as amended.