In January 2017, HUD awarded the City $141.2 million in Community Development Block Grant National Disaster Resilience grant funding for disaster resilience. HUD designed the grant to give states flexibility in planning program activities and help state and local communities recover from past disasters, while also improving their infrastructure to withstand future extreme events through strategic community investments.  The City…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), Education and Outreach Initiative (EOI).  We conducted this audit to help HUD determine whether the education and outreach provided was going to the people who have been systematically denied full housing opportunity.  Our audit objective was to assess how FHIP…

We audited the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights’ fair housing complaint intake process.  We initiated this audit based on an internal risk assessment of Fair Housing Assistance Program agencies’ challenges.  Our audit objectives were to (1) determine the extent to which the Commission processed fair housing inquiries within 30 days and (2) evaluate its reasons for closing fair housing inquiries.We were unable to determine…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) and the Office of Departmental Equal Employment Opportunity (ODEEO) both have responsibilities related to increasing the percentage of employees who identify as Hispanic or Latino.  HUD provides an Annual Equal Employment Opportunity Program Status Report, also known as the Annual Management Directive 715 Report (MD-715…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of multifamily housing properties with failing Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) scores or life-threatening exigent health and safety (EHS) deficiencies.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD had effective oversight of multifamily housing properties to ensure that the properties were maintained in decent, safe, and sanitary condition.The…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Community Planning and Development’s (CPD) process for collecting financial information from grantees participating in the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Entitlement program. Prior year HUD financial statement audits found weaknesses in CPD’s processes to estimate accrued grant liabilities and instances where it appeared CDBG grantees were…

The Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) directs Inspectors General to conduct an annual evaluation of the agency information security program. FISMA, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) establish information technology (IT) security guidance and standards for Federal agencies. We conducted this evaluation to…

Retention is a shared responsibility between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer (OCHCO) and HUD’s other program offices.  OCHCO sets the departmentwide retention strategy, while the program offices have responsibility for managing retention within their offices.  Our evaluation determined that HUD’s departmentwide retention strategy in fiscal years (FY) 2019-…

We have completed our fiscal year (FY) 2023 Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (FISMA) penetration test and vulnerability assessment.  The objective of this evaluation was to test and verify the technical implementation of a limited set of security controls on judgmentally selected U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) information systems and applications.HUD demonstrated successes in securely…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Single Family Housing’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Resource Center’s handling of housing discrimination inquiries.  We initiated the audit to assist HUD with ensuring that the FHA Resource Center (1) provided accurate and complete information on potential housing discrimination to its customers and (2) ensured that instances of potential…

From 2001 to 2022, the Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery program provided almost $98 billion to states, cities, counties, and territories to help them recover from disasters.  Administering disaster recovery has been a recurring U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) top management challenge since 2018.  Therefore, we audited the disaster recovery program to determine whether the Office of…

We contracted with the independent public accounting firm of CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA) to audit the financial statements of HUD as of and for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, and to provide reports on HUD’s (1) internal control over financial reporting and (2) compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements and other matters, including whether financial management systems complied substantially…

We contracted with the independent public accounting firm of CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA) to audit the financial statements of Ginnie Mae as of and for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, and to provide reports on Ginnie Mae’s (1) internal control over financial reporting and (2) compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements and other matters.  Our contract with CLA required that the audit be…

We contracted with the independent public accounting firm of CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CLA) to audit the financial statements of FHA as of and for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, and to provide reports on FHA’s (1) internal control over financial reporting and (2) compliance with laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements and other matters.  Our contract with CLA required that the audit be performed in…

We audited the Puerto Rico Department of Housing’s (PRDOH) fraud risk management practices to assess the maturity of its antifraud efforts.  HUD heavily relies on its grantees to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and PRDOH is HUD’s second largest Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery and Mitigation (CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT) grantee with over $20 billion in block grant funding.  Our objective was to assess…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program offices issued departmental notices to inform public housing agencies (PHA) and owners of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021’s (the Act) requirements.  In addition, HUD program offices planned to use HUD’s revised physical inspection processes to ensure that PHAs and owners complied with the Act, namely under its new National Standards for the Physical…

We performed an audit examining HUD’s efforts to prevent duplication of benefits when using Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery and Mitigation funds.  Our objective was to determine how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) assesses the adequacy of grantee procedures to prevent a duplication of benefits, both before and after grant execution. HUD certified grantees’ high-level processes…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Native American Programs’ (ONAP) coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) recovery programs.  We performed this audit to provide HUD with insight and a nationwide perspective on the challenges that grantees experienced with those programs.  Our audit objectives were to identify 1) the information, guidance, and training HUD provided to the grantees…

We performed an audit related to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Disaster Recovery Data Portal.  The Disaster Recovery Data Portal is a technological solution planned by HUD to facilitate the rapid and secure transmission of data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery grantees.  We performed the work because HUD needs a…

We selected the State of California’s 2018 disaster owner-occupied rehabilitation and reconstruction program to audit after an internal risk assessment of disaster grantees showed the grant was newer and had not yet disbursed the majority of its funding.  The State received more than $1 billion for the 2018 disasters.  Our audit objective was to determine what the State is considering and to what extent resilience-based…