A Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report revealed that over $5 billion of Biden-era rental assistance payments went to deceased tenants and noncitizens.
“A massive abuse of taxpayer dollars not only occurred under President [Joe] Biden’s watch, but was effectively incentivized by his administration’s failure to implement strong financial controls resulting in billions worth of potential improper payments,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner told The New York Post.
Turner added: “HUD will continue investigating the shocking results and will take appropriate action to hold bad actors accountable. Additionally, the Department is advancing efforts made under President Trump’s first administration to strengthen program integrity and ensure taxpayer-funded assistance serves the vulnerable communities it was intended for.”
The HUD FY 2025 Agency Financial Report highlighted accomplishments by HUD’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO), including efforts to weed out corruption and waste.
“HUD embraced the transformative potential of artificial intelligence by developing use cases for an AI-powered policy assessment tool, single audit automation, and fraud detection through analysis of receipts submitted via the sub-recipient reporting portal,” explained the agency. “These capabilities will enable HUD to identify and mitigate fraud, waste, and abuse more effectively, and position itself at the forefront of technological innovation, accelerating modernization and enhancing its ability to deliver on its mission.”
The AI tool helps detect fraud and waste in rental assistance programs because they have “complex regulations” and take too much time to research.
During FY 2024, HUD sent out $50 billion in federal rental assistance.
Over $16 billion went through the Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) and over $33 million through the Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA), covering over four million households.
“This disbursement of funding design along with complex eligibility and program requirements, increased the risk of payment errors and highlights the necessity for more robust monitoring and verification tools for the rental assistance programs,” according to the report.
The agency accused the Biden administration of pushing out the funds “with minimal oversight” and just trusting the people who received the money.
Yeah, that went over well: “For the first time, HUD evaluated all 4+ million tenant records and the registration status of more than 21,000 recipient organizations, uncovering eligibility issues affecting more than 200,000 tenants and identifying questionable payments totaling $5.8 billion (including approximately $4.3 billion (26.4%) of PBRA payments and $1.5 billion (4.4%) of TBRA payments).”
Insanity: “The around 11% of taxpayer dollars from HUD went to more than 200,000 possibly ineligible tenants — of whom 29,715 (around 14%) were dead, 9,472 (4%) were non-citizens and 165,393 (82%) were receiving sums that exceeded the threshold for assistance in their geographic region, particularly in New Orleans and other large metro areas.”
HUD has to contact “the public housing authorities and other entities to confirm the extent of the fraud — and either pause or revoke funding.”
HUD will also send criminal referrals if needed.
“HUD is implementing processes and procedures to revoke or pause funding as part of its efforts to hold bad actors accountable,” one official told The New York Post. “Additionally, the Department could make criminal referrals and exercise other enforcement actions once it has confirmed fraud occurred.”
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