We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) monitoring of grantee compliance with the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) timeliness spending requirement.  The objectives of the audit were to determine whether HUD’s guidance for ensuring compliance with the CDBG entitlement spending requirement had been implemented effectively by the field offices; specifically, whether HUD needs to implement additional…

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…

We investigated an alleged preforeclosure scheme involving 31 properties financed with Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans.  As a result, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California brought a civil case against Mr. Mario Menendez under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA). In August 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a complaint in U.S. district court…

We reviewed the County of Santa Barbara’s HOME Investment Partnerships program due to concerns expressed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Los Angeles Office of Community Planning and Development regarding the County’s administration of its HOME program.  Our objective was to determine whether the County performed its monitoring responsibilities and ensured that incurred HOME program expenditures were eligible…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD), Office of Inspector General reviewed HUD’s oversight of Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 due to concerns over its ensuring economic opportunities for low- and very low-income persons.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD enforced the requirements of the Section 3 program for Recovery Act Public Housing Capital Fund recipients. We found that…

We audited the City of Santa Ana’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program 2 (NSP2).  We initiated the audit as part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) fiscal year 2012-2013 annual audit plan.  Our objective was to determine whether the City administered its program funds in accordance with applicable HUD rules and requirements.  Specifically, our focus was to determine…

 We audited the selection and award of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) fiscal year 2010  HOPE VI revitalization grants, based on a hotline complaint alleging that HUD’s Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) (1) selected and awarded fiscal year 2011 HOPE VI funds to grantees that applied for fiscal year 2010 grants but did not publish a notice of funding availability (NOFA) for its fiscal year 2011…

We audited certain portions of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) multifamily housing and healthcare insured mortgage programs as part of our fiscal year 2012 annual audit plan.  The objective of the review was to determine the adequacy of the Office of Housing’s procedures and controls for selecting, conducting, and following up on postendorsement underwriting reviews of insured multifamily and healthcare loans…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General selected HUD’s Federal Housing Administration, Single Family Claims Branch, for audit based on an internal audit suggestion expressing concern that HUD may not have policies, procedures, or systems to identify and address funds held by lenders and submitted as part of a claim.  Our audit objective was to determine whether FHA had adequately reduced mortgage…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) servicing of multifamily projects with HUD-held mortgages because it was part of the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) annual audit plan. We reviewed 33 multifamily projects with HUD-held mortgages that totaled $307.9 million. Our objective was to determine whether HUD (1) obtained, documented, and reviewed the monthly accounting reports and (2) collected monthly net…

We reviewed the City of San Bernardino’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and CDBG-Recovery Act (CDBG-R) programs because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Los Angeles Office of Community Planning and Development expressed concerns about the City’s administration of its CDBG program. Our objective was to determine whether the City administered its CDBG and CDBG-R program funds in accordance with applicable HUD…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General conducted a limited scope internal review of Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control (Healthy Homes) to determine whether Healthy Homes allowed excessive administrative costs to be charged to the Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control grant program. This review was the result of the audit of the Washington State Lead Hazard Control grant (2012-SE-1005,…

We audited the Office of Labor Relations deposit account based on a request from the Acting Director of the Office Labor Relations. The Acting Director was concerned with internal controls over the deposit account. The objective of our review was to determine whether (1) controls used to administer and distribute restitution payments were adequate and (2) the correct workers received the restitution payments. Labor Relations violated the…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) State Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Hurricane Disaster Recovery program for hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast States from August 2005 through September 2008. Our audit objective was to assess the program overall. Specifically, we wanted to (1) determine what had been accomplished using the funding and the funds remaining to be spent; (2) compare actual versus…

We conducted an audit of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) fiscal year 2012 compliance with the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 as amended by the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA).  The statute was enacted to prevent the loss of billions in taxpayer dollars due to improper payments by requiring the agency to identify and report on its programs and activities that are…

We audited Bay Vista Methodist Heights, San Diego, CA, to determine the full extent of the misuse of its trust funds. We selected Bay Vista for review based on a referral from the Office of Multifamily Housing, stating that Bay Vista violated its trust fund agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) because the former chief financial officer transferred more than $3 million in restricted funds into Bay Vista’s…

We completed a corrective action verification of a recommendation made to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) pertaining to our review of the City of Hawthorne, CA’s Section 8 program, Audit Report 2011-LA-1008, which was issued March 28, 2011. The purpose of the corrective action verification was to determine whether HUD officials appropriately closed audit recommendation 1A.…

We conducted an evaluation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) toll free phone lines.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD’s phone lines were functioning at optimal levels with regard to phone line operations and the level of customer service provided to the public. Our review disclosed that HUD could not determine (1) whether its toll free phone lines were functioning at an optimal level and (2) the…

We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Home Investment Partnerships Program as part of an Office of Inspector General (OIG) plan to improve HUD’s execution and accountability of fiscal responsibility. Our objective was to determine whether HUD’s proposed regulation changes and controls would mitigate the systemic deficiencies identified in prior OIG audit reports. We found that if properly implemented, HUD’s…

We conducted a limited review of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans underwritten by Standard Pacific Mortgage, Inc. We selected the lender based on the results of an auditability survey, which determined that Standard Pacific Mortgage allowed prohibited restrictive covenants to be filed against FHA-insured properties. The objective of our review was to determine the extent to which Standard Pacific Mortgage failed to prevent the…