The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – Office of Inspector General audited the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Denver, CO in response to issues discovered during a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - Denver, Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD), monitoring review.  Issues identified during HUD’s review included improperly accounting for administrative costs and the use of grant funds for ineligible expenses.  The objectives of our review was to determine whether the Coalition properly assigned employee time among its grants and whether it charged unallowable costs to its grants.

The Coalition incorrectly allocated its employee payroll time among its Supportive Housing Program grants.  In addition, it charged ineligible costs to its grants, provided ineligible benefits to its employees, and spent some of its grant money on ineligible supportive housing items.  The Coalition also continued to misspend its grant funds as highlighted in previous HUD Office of Inspector General and HUD CPD reviews.

We recommend that HUD require the Coalition to (1) develop procedures to ensure that employee timesheets are accurate; (2) provide support for Homeless Management Information System time charged to its grants; (3) reimburse HUD for ineligible grant expenses; and (4) seek a legal opinion from HUD’s Office of General Counsel regarding the use of grant funds for employee parking, employee gift cards, and transit subsidies.