For Immediate Release
September 30, 2013

Contact: HUD OIG Communications
[email protected]

Washington, DC – Today, Inspector General David A. Montoya announced the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a report entitled, “Moving to Work Demonstration Program.”  This audit was undertaken to focus HUD management’s attention on problem areas reported on over the years. 

The Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, authorized the Moving to Work Demonstration program.  The program was established to give public housing agencies and HUD the flexibility to design and test innovative, locally designed strategies in pursuit of the national goal of delivering rental assistance more efficiently.  The program’s intent is to pursue three statutory objectives:  (1) reduce cost and achieve greater cost effectiveness in Federal expenditures; (2) give incentives to families with children in which the head of household is working; seeking work; or preparing by participating in job training, educational programs, or programs that assist people to obtain employment and become economically self-sufficient; and (3) increase housing choices for low-income families.  We found that HUD had implemented program monitoring procedures; however, its program oversight was inadequate because it had not:

(1) implemented programwide performance indicators,
(2) evaluated agencies’ programs according to its policy,
(3) evaluated agencies’ compliance with key statutory requirements,
(4) verified agencies’ self-reported performance data, and
(5) performed required annual program risk assessments. 

As a result, in the more than 14 years since the program was implemented, HUD is still not able to show whether the program is meeting its objectives.  Also, HUD had limited ability to assess agencies’ compliance with statutory program goals and lacked assurance that agencies met key statutory requirements.  Congress is considering expanding the program; however, based on the audit findings, HUD should delay program expansion until it has implemented programwide performance indicators and determined that program evaluation results warrant expansion.

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