HUD OIG performed an audit of the High Point Housing Authority’s (Authority) U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program pursuant to a citizen’s complaint. Our objectives were to determine whether the Authority properly (1) enforced HUD’s housing quality standards, (2) calculated Section 8 administrative fees, and (3) determined housing assistance subsidies and issued vouchers to qualified participants.

The Authority’s administration of the Housing Choice Voucher program with respect to enforcement of housing quality standards, calculation of administrative fees, rent reasonableness determinations, and eligibility of landlords was inadequate due to missing or ineffective controls. For the sample of 15 units we inspected, 12 (80 percent) did not meet minimum housing quality standards. For 4 of these units, the Authority paid rental assistance although the units were in material noncompliance with housing quality standards for conditions that existed at the time of the last Authority inspection. In addition, the Authority received excessive administrative fees during fiscal year 2008 because it did not timely remove over income tenants from its program. Further, the Authority did not properly document rent reasonableness using recent comparable unit data prior to signing housing assistance payment contracts, and did not prescreen landlords as required by HUD. The Authority correctly calculated housing assistance subsidies and issued vouchers to qualified participants for the tenants in our sample.

We recommend that the Director of the Greensboro Office of Public Housing require the Authority to repay its voucher program from nonfederal funds for rental assistance paid landlords for units in material noncompliance with housing quality standards. We also recommend that the Authority perform a special inspection of a representative sample of its units to determine the extent of noncompliance and develop and implement controls for ensuring that its units meet standards. Further, the Authority must implement controls to ensure that its administrative fees are correct, rent reasonableness determinations are made timely using appropriate comparable data, and its landlords qualify.