We audited the City of Las Vegas Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP) established by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). Our review of the City of Las Vegas (City) was in response to the Recovery Act, which mandates that OIG take the responsibility to oversee and audit programs and activities funded by the Recovery Act. The City received a grant of $2.1 million.

Our objective was to determine whether the City administered and expended its grant in accordance with program requirements. The City paid for HPRP services for ineligible participants and participants whose eligibility was unsupported. It also paid for ineligible activities. We reviewed 18 case files and found that 8 participants were ineligible and 7 did not have adequate documentation to support eligibility. As a result, we are questioning $75,273 out of the $85,691 in direct assistance to participants that we reviewed. We also found that the City did not have adequate procedures to ensure that HPRP expenditures and activities were accurately tracked and recorded.

We recommend that the Acting Director of the San Francisco Office of Community Planning and Development require the City to (1) reimburse the program $45,825 from non-Federal funds for the ineligible participants and activities and determine and reimburse any amounts that have been spent since our review for these participants; (2) provide supporting documentation for participants’ eligibility or reimburse its program accounts $29,448 for participants reviewed who lacked adequate documentation and determine and reimburse any unsupported amounts that have been spent since our review for these participants; (3) design and implement adequate procedures for determining, reviewing, and approving eligibility for participants and activities that will provide reasonable assurance that assistance payments are made only for eligible participants and activities; (4) develop and implement new controls and procedures to ensure that financial records are accurate and prevent the deficiencies identified during the audit; and (5) perform a complete review of assistance payments to date and correct any errors. We also recommend that HUD review additional case files and identify additional questioned costs.