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United States Department of Housing and Urban Development

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 Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
Seal of the Department of Housing and Urban Development
Established: September 9, 1965
Activated: January 13, 1966
Secretary: Alphonso Jackson
Deputy Secretary: Roy Bernardi
Budget: 28.5 billion (2006)
Employees: 10,600 (2004)
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, often abbreviated HUD, is a Cabinet department of the United States government. It was founded in 1965 to develop and execute policy on housing and cities. It has largely scaled back its urban development function and now focuses primarily on housing.

The department was established on September 9, 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Department of Housing and Urban Development Act (PL 89-174) into law. It stipulated that the department was to be created no later than November 8, sixty days following the date of enactment. The actual implementation was postponed until January 13, 1966, following the completion of a special study group report on the federal role in solving urban problems.

It is administered by the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Contents

Operating units

All current programs are grouped in the following categories: Many major affordable housing and homelessness programs are administered under Community Planning and Development. These include the Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), the HOME program, Shelter Plus Care, Emergency Shelter Grants (ESG), Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy program (Mod Rehab SRO), and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA).

Accounting Problems and Massive Fraud at HUD

In 1999, internal audits revealed over $59 Billion missing and unaccounted for at HUD. Susan Gaffney, Inspector General of HUD, testified before Congress in 2000 that she could not sign off on the fiscal 1999 audit because of “the undetermined effects of the conversion problems of the general ledger from the Program Accounting System [PAS] to HUD’s Central Account and Program System [HUDCAPS] during the fiscal year, the integrated state of HUD’s reconciliation efforts and their documentation for the general ledger accounts for the fund balance with Treasury, and the late manual posting of numerous and significant adjustments (some as late as Feb. 25, 2000) directly to the financial statements, for which we lacked sufficient time to test their legitimacy.” What the IG is saying is that HUD’s finances are in a shambles because, during 1999, the agency was converting to a new computer system, the field offices didn’t balance their checkbooks on a monthly basis and manual postings were made to the financial statements so late that the IG had no time to review whether the postings were correct. Gaffney does report in one section of her testimony that “242 adjustments, totaling about $59.6 billion, were made to adjust fiscal year 1999 activity.”

Related legislation

External links

 

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