We audited HUD and its grantees’ monitoring of subrecipients and contractors in HUD’s Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (ESG-CV) program to assess subrecipient monitoring in the program.  ESG and ESG-CV grantees often rely on subrecipients and contractors to carry out ESG-CV-funded activities on behalf of the grantees, and are required to monitor subrecipients to ensure that the purpose of…

We audited the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) with the objective of evaluating HCD’s fraud risk management practices for its Emergency Solutions Grants Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (ESG CARES Act) program and assessing the maturity of its efforts to prevent, detect, and respond to fraud.  Fraudulent activity in the ESG CARES Act program can lead to significant financial losses,…

We selected the State of California’s 2018 disaster owner-occupied rehabilitation and reconstruction program to audit after an internal risk assessment of disaster grantees showed the grant was newer and had not yet disbursed the majority of its funding.  The State received more than $1 billion for the 2018 disasters.  Our audit objective was to determine what the State is considering and to what extent resilience-based mitigation…

We performed a review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) monitoring and tracking of Continuum of Care (CoC) grantees that have been slow to spend their grant funds.  Our objectives were to determine whether HUD was effectively tracking and monitoring CoC grant spending and to determine the impact of COVID-19 on CoC grantee spending. HUD generally tracked and monitored its grantees; however, it did not…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act program. Our audit objective was to determine what challenges grantees faced in using program funds for activities that prepare for, prevent, or respond to the coronavirus and its impact.  We used a survey questionnaire to gather feedback and insight directly from 1,047 program…

We audited the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program.  The audit was initiated because of the homelessness crisis in the City of Los Angeles, which has the highest number of unsheltered people in the United States.  In addition, the Los Angeles city controller issued a report in 2019, criticizing the Authority for falling short of City of Los Angeles homeless outreach goals.  (See Background and…

We audited Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County’s (NHSLA) Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 (NSP2).  The audit was based on a complaint alleging questionable NSP2 financial activity, double payments to contractors, and payments to contractors for incomplete work.  Our Office of Audit received the referred complaint in late 2018.  However, because the complaint included concerns regarding activities and auditee…

We conducted this limited review to identify the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) drawdown levels for the initial round of Emergency Solutions Grants (ESG) funding.  In addition, we researched information published by grantees on how they have used and will use their funds.  Our objective was to highlight the grantees’ (1) drawdown levels for…

We audited the City of Compton’s Neighborhood Stabilization Programs (NSP) 1 and 3 due to a referral made by our Office of Investigation because of concerns related to ongoing issues at the City and complaints received about the City’s administration of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds.  In addition, HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development rated the City as high risk for administering program funds in…

We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care Program (CoC) award review process based on an anonymous hotline complaint alleging problems with the CoC competitive award process.  The objective of our review was to determine whether HUD performed its CoC competitive review and award process in accordance with NOFA program requirements, focusing on ranking and scoring CoC projects.…

We audited Community Action North Bay’s Continuum of Care Program based on hotline complaints (HC-2016-2275 and HT-2019-1142) and concerns expressed by the San Francisco Office of Community Planning and Development that included matching noncompliance issues.  The complaints alleged improper accounting, timekeeping irregularities, unreported program income, and conflicts of interest.  Our objective was to determine whether the…

Topic briefs are a tool we use to keep officials within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) informed of challenges so that its leadership can be better prepared to address them.  This topic brief describes our observations of the time it takes the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) to complete risk-based scoring.  HUD implemented its risk analysis process to help CPD field offices identify and…

We initiated our audit in accordance with our strategic goal to provide the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with services and products to address vulnerabilities, to provide opportunities for improvements, and to recognize positive outcomes.  The audit objective was to determine whether the HUD Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) monitored and ensured that its Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013,…

We audited the Housing Authority of the County of Stanislaus’ Shelter Plus Care program based on a hotline complaint and concerns expressed by the San Francisco Office of Community Planning and Development regarding the Authority’s lack of documentation to support participant eligibility.  Our objective was to determine whether the Authority documented participant eligibility related to homelessness and disability in accordance with Shelter…

We audited the Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino’s Continuum of Care grant funds received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  We audited the Authority because it is among the top 15 percent of competitive grantees in HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development’s risk analysis.  Our audit objective was to determine whether the Authority administered its Continuum of Care grants in…

We conducted an attestation review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Special Needs Assistance Continuum of Care, regarding drug control accounting and associated management assertions for fiscal year 2018.  As required by Federal statute 21 U.S.C. 1704(d), we reviewed HUD’s Report on Drug Control Accounting, including its written assertions.  Our responsibility is to express a conclusion on the…

We audited the City of San Bernardino, CA’s HOME Investment Partnerships program.  We audited the City based on the Region 9 Office of Inspector General’s 2016 risk analysis of Los Angeles area community planning and development grantees.  In addition, although the County of San Bernardino had been administering the City’s recent HOME grants, the City still had several of its own HOME activities underway and others that had closed…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of its Community Compass Technical Assistance and Capacity Building (Community Compass) program.  We conducted the audit because we received a complaint alleging that HUD did not ensure that the program operated in compliance with applicable requirements and we had not audited the program.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate…

We audited HUD’s oversight of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds used for Section 108 repayments.  This audit was part of our annual audit plan.  The objective of this audit was to determine whether HUD effectively monitored the use of CDBG funds in repaying Section 108 loans and whether it was feasible to enact a threshold or maximum amount of CDBG funds that grantees may use to repay loans. HUD’s oversight of the use of…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant code enforcement program due to results from our external audits, which showed that grantees did not adequately understand and failed to ensure compliance with program requirements.  Our audit objective was to determine (1) whether HUD’s code enforcement guidance under its Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) Notice CPD-…