We reviewed HUD’s monitoring of the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP) in support of HUD OIG’s audit plan goals to oversee Recovery Act-funded activity and improve HUD’s execution of and accountability for fiscal responsibilities. The objective of the audit was to determine whether HUD had established adequate controls to (1) ensure that grantees complied with Recovery Act expenditure and performance reporting requirements and (2) evaluate the HPRP’s effectiveness so that positive policies can be applied to future HUD-funded homelessness prevention and assistance programs.

HUD took actions to mitigate program risks and generally ensure that HPRP grantees complied with Recovery Act requirements and HPRP regulations. However, HUD’s ability to measure the effectiveness of the HPRP was hampered by data limitations. These limitations are attributed to the limited timeframe for the HPRP and variations in reporting by HPRP grantees. As a result, HUD does not have reliable data for outcome-based measurements of the HPRP. Recognizing these limitations, HUD contracted for a multi-phased study of the HPRP and in the interim, incorporated perceived HPRP successful attributes into the Emergency Solutions Grants program. Nevertheless, additional actions could be taken to develop information to assist in evaluating the effectiveness of the HPRP.

We recommend that HUD’s Acting Deputy Assistant Director for Special Needs encourage HPRP grantees to identify successful performance evaluation attempts and profiles of HPRP promising practices for analysis and consideration for future study and report on their use of data available in HMIS to identify Emergency Solutions Grant assisted participants who were HPRP participants to assist in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the HPRP assistance.