The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the HUD’s travel and purchase card programs for fiscal year 2016 based on (1) our annual risk assessment of these programs and (2) our requirement under the Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 to periodically review government travel and purchase cards.  The most recent risk assessment found that there was a moderate risk of illegal,…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the HUD’s government purchase card program.  We initiated the review based on our participation in a collaborative effort with other inspectors general under the direction of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) to issue a consolidated report to the Office of Management and Budget on government purchase card use…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of disaster grantee procurement processes.  We conducted the audit after prior audits identified procurement issues.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD provided sufficient guidance and oversight to ensure that disaster grantees followed proficient procurement processes when purchasing products and services. HUD did not provide sufficient…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Community Planning and Development’s administration of Economic Development Initiative – Special Project and Neighborhood Initiative congressional grants.  This review was prompted by our Financial Audit Division’s 2012 review, which reported that HUD did not have effective controls to monitor its obligated congressional grant funds.[1]  Our audit…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General audited Ginnie Mae’s oversight of nonbanks due to the growth of nonbank issuers in the mortgage servicing industry.  Our objective was to determine whether Ginnie Mae responded adequately to changes in its issuer base. We found that Ginnie Mae did not adequately respond to changes in its issuer base.  Specifically, it did not implement policies and…

We audited the City of New York’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery-funded Public Housing Rehabilitation and Resilience Program.  Our objective was to determine whether the City had established adequate controls to ensure that it followed U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Federal, and City requirements when disbursing disaster funds under its program.  We found that the City generally had…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) process for forgiving debts and terminating debt collections based on an Office of Inspector General (OIG) preaudit analysis that noted potential violations of debt collection requirements related to disallowed costs in a prior OIG audit recommendation.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD complied with applicable requirements when forgiving debts and…

We audited the State of New York’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery-funded Non-Federal Share Match Program.  We conducted this audit because the State had used approximately $223 million for the program as of December 2016 and a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) review of the program had identified weaknesses related to compliance monitoring and recordkeeping.  Our objective was to determine…

Very low REAC scores are not prevalent across ORCF’s portfolio.  The majority of RCFs that received a REAC score scored at least 80 on their last inspection, and more than three quarters scored at least 60.  Despite the small percentage of RCFs that scored below 31, we noticed an overall decline in REAC inspection scores across ORCF’s portfolio from 2000 to 2016. REAC has adopted an inspection process that applies uniformly to all…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of servicers’ use of loss mitigation programs.  The audit was initiated in response to an Office of Inspector General preaudit analysis of HUD data, which determined that servicers may not always evaluate borrowers with delinquent mortgages for loss mitigation.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate controls to ensure that…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited public housing agency compliance with HUD’s flat rent requirements.  We initiated this audit based on multiple external audits conducted by the HUD Office of Inspector General, which showed that housing authorities were unaware of or did not properly implement the flat rent requirements.  Our objective was to determine whether housing…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant program’s direct home-ownership assistance activities.  We conducted the audit because it was included in our audit plan based on recent HUD, Office of Inspector General, audits that found issues with home-ownership assistance in the HOME Investment Partnerships program.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD had…

HUD OIG assisted U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York in a civil investigation related to illegal-undocumented aliens  receiving Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) assistance.  The HOPWA program at 24 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 574 is a HUD Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) grant program that provides formula allocations and competitively awarded grants to eligible States…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s rulemaking process for its single family note sales program. We initiated the audit due to the large amount of Federal Housing Administration claims paid on note sales and because our office has never audited the single-family note sales program.  Also, there are public concerns over the creation and administration of the note sales…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Community Planning and Development’s (CPD) risk assessment and monitoring of its State Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) recipients.  We started this assignment due to significant findings reported on the State of Oklahoma CDBG-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) audit (2016-FW-1010) and HUD’s lack of monitoring the State since fiscal year 2011.  Our…

Enforce the requirement for all HUD web applications and services to be approved and authorized by OCIO. The OIG has determined that the contents of this recommendation would not be appropriate for public disclosure and has therefore limited its distribution to selected officials. Corrective Action Taken In January 2023, HUD's Office of the Chief Information Officer developed and released a Web Applications Directive to all HUD program…

We received a referral from the Quality Assurance Division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Philadelphia Homeownership Center concerning a borrower who allegedly made false statements to obtain Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage insurance.  The borrower provided false and conflicting employment and income information, which was used in originating and obtaining an FHA loan.  Further, the…

We conducted an attestation review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Special Needs Assistance Continuum of Care Program, regarding drug control accounting and associated management assertions for fiscal year 2016.  The objective of our attestation review was to evaluate HUD’s financial reporting and assertions for drug control funds to determine if its reporting was in compliance with regulations and…

The Inspector General Act of 1978 requires the Inspector General to prepare semiannual reports summarizing the activities of the Office of Inspector General for the preceding six-month periods. The semiannual reports are intended to keep the Secretary and the Congress fully informed of significant findings, progress the Agency has made and recommendations for improvement.

We performed the 21st review of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s (LMDC) administration of the $2.783 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery funds awarded to the State of New York in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.  The objective of the audit was to determine whether LMDC disbursed CDBG Disaster Recovery funds in accordance…