The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher program based on an internal audit suggestion.  A 2007 HUD-OIG audit report (2007-FW-0001) indicated problems with oversubsidization in the program, and since then, the Office of Inspector General had conducted only a few external audits to help substantiate whether oversubsidization continued to be a problem.  Our audit objective was to determine whether oversubsidization still exists in the Housing Choice Voucher program.

We found HUD had made progress in reducing oversubsidization in the Housing Choice Voucher program, but the problem continued to exist.  Of the 100 households we reviewed, 13 were oversubsidized.  This condition occurred because HUD had made few data analytic tools available to public housing agencies to help detect and monitor oversubsidized households, improper payment standards, and reporting errors.  We estimated that more than $1.1 million in excess subsidy payments was not available for other households seeking housing choice voucher assistance.  

We recommend that the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Housing and Voucher Programs provide guidance to the authorities on the data analytic tools available and the specific procedures to help detect and monitor oversubsidized households, improper payment standards, and reporting errors to put at least $1.1 million to better use annually.