The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) leads and coordinates the Nation’s drug policy to improve the health and lives of the American people, including the development and implementation of the National Drug Control Strategy (the Strategy).  ONDCP evaluates the effectiveness of national drug control policy efforts, the Strategy’s goals and objectives, and each National Drug Control Program Agency’s program-level measures.  On February 27, 2024, after determining the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) program-level performance measures were missing numeric data to determine the extent HUD’s programs contributed to the Strategy, ONDCP requested that HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG) review HUD’s fiscal year (FY) 2023 performance measures.  We initiated an audit to obtain the FY 2023 performance measures for HUD’s Continuum of Care Program (CoC) and Recovery Housing Program (RHP), to determine whether they accurately reflect program performance, and identify challenges the programs have experienced in developing and reporting performance measures.

HUD does not provide ONDCP with annual numeric targets for its CoC and RHP performance measures, but rather designates these performance metrics as tracking indicators used to contribute to ONDCP’s overall performance reporting on reducing overdoses in the United States.  HUD is hesitant to set annual numeric targets for CoCs because the primary focus of the program is to provide housing to individuals and families experiencing homelessness and not specific to people with substance use issues.  HUD is also hesitant to set annual numerical targets for RHP grantees because the program is a pilot program and potential issues with setting annual targets for multi-year RHP grants.  In addition, HUD cannot provide ONDCP actual results for CoC grantees by ONDCP’s designated annual November 1st deadline because CoC grantee data is not available to HUD until months after the deadline.  HUD uses a January 2018 ONDCP-approved reporting methodology to report CoC performance measures.  However, this reporting methodology does not allow ONDCP to fully capture the extent of the CoC and RHP programs’ contribution to the Strategy’s overall goal and objective of reducing overdose deaths in the United States.

In addition, HUD does not have formal policies and procedures for ONDCP reporting requirements which may increase the risk of reporting inconsistencies and impacts knowledge retention.

HUD can improve its performance reporting measures by collaborating with ONDCP on reporting methodologies that ensure performance measures can be reported by ONDCP’s November 1st deadline.  HUD should also establish formal reporting policies and procedures and written agreements with ONDCP that reflect the collaborative effort on alternative reporting methodologies.  By taking these actions, HUD will improve HUD and ONDCP’s ability to fully capture the programs’ contributions towards reducing overdose deaths in the United States.