We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher program as part of an Office of Inspector General plan to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of HUD programs.  The objective of the audit was to determine whether HUD’s guidance for optimizing and stabilizing housing choice voucher utilization had been implemented effectively by the field offices and public housing agencies.

HUD officials had generally implemented the guidance for optimizing and stabilizing housing choice voucher utilization through HUD’s utilization protocol.  However, some utilization protocol controls had not been implemented.  In addition, opportunities exist to strengthen controls to ensure stable optimal utilization.

We recommend that HUD (1) implement procedures outlining the responsibilities and expectations of each person involved in the improvement of utilization performance; (2) develop procedures that would require providing concise information to public housing agencies regarding their utilization performance issues; (3) establish procedures requiring that information affecting utilization performance is accessible to the HUD field officials responsible for analyzing utilization performance; (4) establish procedures to address public housing agencies that fail to improve their utilization performance; and (5) ensure HUD officials receive and analyze utilization information in a timely manner.