We audited the project activity status for 12 grantees that received funds under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) National Disaster Resilience (NDR) grant to determine whether the grantees have accomplished or are on track to accomplish the goals of the activities outlined in their action plans. 

We found that NDR grantees should be able to accomplish their program goals by leveraging deadline flexibilities that HUD offered. Grantees had spent more than 70 percent of their grant funds since program implementation in 2016. Grantees were working toward disbursing their remaining $250 million in grant funds for 75 project activities planned or underway by the revised program expenditure deadline.  Of the 12 NDR grantees, 4 had progressed well with accomplishing program goals. The other eight grantees experienced challenges related to one or more of their project activities. The 8 grantees that experienced challenges had a combined total of 24 project activities, of which 21 activities had been underway between 4 and 8 years from their original planned start dates, and the grantees had disbursed less than one-third of the funds allocated, with 3 activities still in “planned” phase, even though the grant agreements were executed more than 7 years ago. The grantees cited a variety of reasons for the delays, such as COVID-19, the newness of the program, and various other issues. Our review also found that grantees lacked adequate policies and procedures for the timely expenditure of funds and had staffing and partner capacity issues, which may have contributed to delays. In addition, HUD could improve its use and design of quarterly performance and action plan review checklists to be more effective in its regular monitoring and oversight of the grantees. 

These projects are vital to the communities they serve. Although the grantees were progressing in the implementation of their project activities, the slow pace of completing projects and deadline flexibilities provided by HUD resulted in delayed benefits to program beneficiaries and continued exposure to future damage to their communities. 

Our recommendations to assist in improving oversight of the NDR grantees include recommending that HUD (1) work with Connecticut and Shelby County grantees to create a plan of action to fully realize program benefits; (2) conduct onsite monitoring for the City of Minot and Tennessee grantees, which have not been monitored; (3) require the eight grantees with delayed activities to provide a detailed timeline for completing their projects to ensure that grantees stay on schedule; (4) revise and abbreviate the action plan and quarterly performance checklists for more effective use; and (5) require grantees to provide documentation showing that they have upfront collaboration with partnering entities.