Read Your Own Newspaper, E.J.
Washington Post progressive columnist, E.J. Dionne, was his usual self last Sunday, whining that little attention is paid to “government successes.” In that case it was “the government’s rescue of the Detroit-based auto companies.”
Sure hope E.J. reads the front-page story in today’s Post. Editors gave it “above-the-fold” attention, but the headline of the investigative story tells you most of what you want to know -- “Tasked with building homes for the poor, HUD has lost hundreds of millions on delayed or defunct construction deals nationwide.” (emphasis added).
The Post story by Debbie Cenziper and Jonathan Mummolo focuses on the cause when they write:
“At the heart of the problem lies HUD’s failure to track the pace of construction.
“HUD monitors only when local agencies draw money from their federal accounts, not what is actually being built. That leaves HUD with little way of knowing when projects stall or die. Local housing agencies are supposed to notify the federal government, but they often fail to say anything.
“If [housing agencies] fail to terminate projects as they should, we may not be aware of them right away,” Marquez said.
“She said that it is not feasible for HUD to monitor thousands of ongoing developments and that local agencies should have their own project-tracking systems.
“The Post independently analyzed HUD data to find about 700 troubled projects that were awarded $400 million.
“But the actual number of stalled or terminated projects is likely to be much higher. The Post identified an additional 2,800 projects worth $1 billion that are in “final draw,” meaning the projects drew all of their allotted HUD funding but are still listed as open and ongoing in HUD’s records.
“In some cases, the work was completed, but local agencies had failed to tell HUD. In other cases, however, projects were delayed or scrapped. The Post found abandoned projects in final draw from Texas to Florida to the D.C. region.
“One dead project listed in final draw was proposed for downtown Rockville, where the nonprofit Montgomery Housing Partnership received $550,000 in 2008 to build a 109-unit apartment building.
“The project struggled with funding gaps, opposition from neighbors and a lack of support from elected officials. Three years later, nothing has been built.”
If Congress ever gets around to bringing the deficit and the debt under control, the first place they might want to look to control federal spending is HUD, which looks to be a prime starting place. If additional evidence is needed that HUD is a prime starting place to downsize government, visit the Cato Institute’s “Downsizing the Federal Government” website where Chris Edwards and Tad deHaven propose spending cuts that would “save taxpayers $63 billion annually.”