We recommend that HUD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Counseling ensure that the new Housing Counseling Agency Management System provides HUD with the ability to adequately oversee the work of its staff and track important housing counseling agency milestones, including HUD approval Read More

Establish and implement procedures to reassess the safe harbor percentage and rates periodically to ensure that they are reasonable. HUD should retain the documentation justifying the calculation of those percentages and rates. In addition, HUD should assess the feasibility of requiring the Read More

Support the eligibility of more than $4,187,560 in unsupported costs or require the grantees to repay the U.S. Treasury from non-Federal funds.

Require one grantee to repay the U.S. Treasury $343,000 from non-Federal funds for ineligible program costs incurred for the project identified in this report.

Ensure that future policies and guidance developed to return HUD’s offices to normal operations include the specific criteria, metrics, and defined geographic area to be used by all offices as applicable.

Develop and implement sufficient policies and controls to ensure that (1) applicable criteria in any future guidance are met and all safety measures are sufficiently completed before returning HUD’s offices to normal operations and (2) sufficient documentation is maintained to support that the Read More

Obtain the required depository agreements for two5 grantees to ensure that they invest program funds in investment securities for use in carrying out affordable housing activities in accordance with PIH Notices 2014-21, section 4, and 2015-08, section 7.

Strengthen monitoring controls to ensure that current and future grantees maintain the required depository agreements before allowing them to invest program funds in investment securities for use toward affordable housing activities.

Update HUD’s Indian Housing Block Grant Recipient Self-Monitoring Guidebook to replace the expired requirement for investing program funds with PIH Notice 2015-08 and ensure that the Guidebook is updated with the latest requirements to ensure that grantees remain compliant with program Read More

Take appropriate steps to establish eligibility for collection termination or compromise for 10 debts totaling $1,210,278,5 including three debts that were closed without required DOJ approval. For debts that have a remaining appropriate means of collection, such as demand letters, administrative Read More

Conduct a complete analysis of existing procedures to strengthen controls over debt collection, including HUD’s Treasury Reports of Receivables reporting, resulting in funds to be put to better use of $3,247,078. Controls should include additional procedures for ensuring that DOJ approval is Read More

Pursue the collection of the $5,690,000 in surplus proceeds that HUD was entitled to receive from 2017 loan terminations.

Implement a policy to require servicers to send surplus proceeds notifications to the HUD Secretary-held assets servicing contractor and establish procedures to improve HUD’s surplus proceeds collection efforts.

Redesign the partial claim program to eliminate its weaknesses and ensure that partial claims benefit from a stronger lien position to put $6,770,000 to better use.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards seek guidance from the Department of Labor to correct the wage determinations where applicable for the five projects addressed in this report.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards based on the outcome of recommendation 1A, determine the correct wages to be paid to workers and ensure that appropriate actions are taken to pay the workers.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards update HUD Handbook 1344.1, REV-2, CHG-2, and Labor Relations Letter No. LR-96-03 to comply with the Department of Labor’s policies and guidance on the application of wage determinations for construction projects.

We recommend that the Director of HUD’s Office of Davis-Bacon and Labor Standards develop and implement controls to ensure that the appropriate Davis-Bacon wage rate determinations are implemented in the contracts of FHA-insured multifamily construction projects that require multiple wage Read More

We recommend that the Office of Single Family Housing coordinate its efforts with the Office of Public and Indian Housing and the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs to further ensure that appropriate controls are in place to prevent HECM borrowers from violating principal residency Read More

We recommend that HUD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing require the lenders to support that the repairs to the properties associated with the 32 loans without evidence of permits complied with local code or reimburse HUD $792,837 for the escrow repair funds.