The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General selected the Housing Authority of Snohomish County for audit based on a referral from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Labor Standards Enforcement in Seattle, WA.   Our objective was to determine whether the Authority executed Agreements To Enter Into Housing Assistance Payments Contract (forms HUD-52531-A and HUD-52531-B) for its Sound Families Initiative newly constructed or rehabilitated projects.

We found that the Authority did not execute the required agreements with owners of eight of nine newly constructed or rehabilitated projects that received Section 8 project-based vouchers and Sound Families Initiative funds.  As a result, it did not ensure that owners followed Federal requirements before and during construction of the projects.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Seattle Office of Public Housing review the Authority’s non-Sound Families Initiative project-based voucher projects to determine whether it executed the agreement with the owners of new construction projects and assist the Authority in obtaining any training needs identified by this review.  We also recommend that until the Director believes the Authority understands and is consistently complying with the requirements, the Director should require the Authority to submit evidence and its board of directors to certify that it has complied with regulatory requirements for each new project-based voucher project.