We recommend that the Director of the Houston Office of Public Housing require the Authority’s new board to revise its bylaws to agree with the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Establish and implement a plan to assist public housing agencies in optimizing leasing potential to maximize the number of assisted families and prevent additional vouchers from becoming unfunded. The plan should include but not be limited to (1) addressing the circumstances that prevent public housing agencies from leasing vouchers and assessing whether legislative, policy, or funding changes are needed to optimize voucher use and (2) establishing timeframes to lease vouchers for those public housing agencies that can lease vouchers and determining appropriate corrective actions for those public housing agencies that do not increase their leasing to prevent additional vouchers from becoming unfunded.

Establish and implement a plan for the unused and unfunded vouchers to mitigate or prevent additional vouchers from becoming unused and unfunded […]

Corrective Action Taken

HUD established and implemented a plan for the unused and unfunded vouchers, aiming to mitigate or prevent additional vouchers from becoming unused and unfunded. PIH's plan included the following, among other actions:

• Determining the scope of HUD's statutory and regulatory authority to offset and reallocate vouchers.
• Issuing Office of Public and Indian Housing Notice 2020-29, titled Guidance for Running an Optimized Housing Choice Voucher Program.
• Continuing the work of HUD's landlord taskforce, engaging in listening sessions with major PHA industry groups, and conducting outreach to increase landlord participation in the HCV Program.
• Developing research by HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research on the best methods for adjusting fair market rents and addressing specific challenges in local communities to increase utilization in the HCV Program.

Establish and implement a process to ensure that ONAP’s policies and procedures are effective. This process should address the identification of presidentially declared disaster areas and the requirement to contact disaster-affected housing entities. This process should also integrate with other HUD program offices as appropriate to improve consistency with HUD’s overall disaster response and to ensure the effectiveness of disaster controls.

Improve the Office of Public Housing’s procedures with written guidance to ensure that its staff formally tracks outreach to PHAs.

Revise the current PIH radon policy to align with 24 CFR 50.3(i)(1) and 58.5(i)(2)(i).

Update the PIH radon policy to ensure that program activities comply with the departmentwide policy on radon testing and mitigation requirements.

Develop and implement a strategy to review PIH-funded properties with potential contamination to determine whether site contamination should be considered in future environmental reviews.

Monitor environmental reviews of PIH-funded properties with potential contamination.

Ensure that OCFO has the data it needs to record a reasonable PIH prepayment estimate related to supplemental pandemic funding in fiscal year 2021 and beyond if additional funding is provided.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards seek guidance from the Department of Labor to correct the wage determinations where applicable for the five projects addressed in this report.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards based on the outcome of recommendation 1A, determine the correct wages to be paid to workers and ensure that appropriate actions are taken to pay the workers.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards update HUD Handbook 1344.1, REV-2, CHG-2, and Labor Relations Letter No. LR-96-03 to comply with the Department of Labor’s policies and guidance on the application of wage determinations for construction projects.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards develop and implement controls to ensure that the appropriate Davis-Bacon wage rate determinations are implemented in the contracts of FHA-insured multifamily construction projects that require multiple wage determinations, including the requirement that contract specifications clearly identify the portions of the contract subject to each assigned wage determination, and that adequate documentation to support wage determinations is maintained.

Require the Authority to reimburse the six tenants who overpaid rent totaling $1,550 using non-Federal funds.

Require the Authority to develop and implement internal control procedures that support its policy and ensure a proper tenant selection process when selecting tenants for housing.

Ensure that the Authority follows all applicable HUD requirements related to accessing, use, and safeguarding credentials of HUD systems.

Conduct a nationwide assessment of the impact of portability and determine whether technical assistance is necessary for certain public housing agencies. Consider seeking input from public housing agencies and industry groups to evaluate the potential impact of portability and (1) determine whether improvements to the portability aspect of the program are warranted, and (2) if deemed warranted, determine how the improvements will be implemented for public housing agencies portable vouchers (both port-in and port-out).

Pursue collection or recapture $248,514 ($115,335 $133,179) from the applicable public housing agencies for the overpayment of category 2b portability set-aside funds and special administrative fees cited in this finding.

Distribute $35,189 to the applicable public housing agencies for the underpayment of special administrative fees for portability cited in this finding.