Finding 1155694 (2024-003)

Finding No. 2024-003 – Special Tests and Provisions; Significant Deficiency (HCV Cluster #14.871 and #14.879) CONDITION: The Authority’s Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers program does not have a board adopted Administrative Plan that reflects the order of preference of selecting applicants off the waiting list from the Mainstream Program. CRITERIA: When the Authority is awarded Mainstream vouchers, these vouchers must be used for new admissions to the program from the waiting list. The Authority must lease these vouchers by pulling the first Mainstream-eligible family from its tenant-based waiting list. The Authority is not permitted to reassign existing participants to the program in order to make regular tenant-based vouchers available. Further, the Authority may not skip over Mainstream-eligible families on the waiting list because the Authority is serving the required number of Mainstream families. QUESTIONED COSTS: The amount of questioned costs could not be determined. CONTEXT: A review of the Authority’s Administrative Plan revealed it has not been updated to reflect how Mainstream applicants are selected from the waiting list and at what preference. EFFECT: The Housing Authority could be admitting applicants not in the preferred order. CAUSE: The overall cause was a lack of quality control in understanding the importance of waiting list selections in accordance with preference structure of the Mainstream Program. RECOMMENDATION: The Housing Authority should adopt a board-approved Administrative Plan that properly defines how applicants are selected from the waiting list.