Expect More from OMB—Contradictory 5 Year Chronic Homeless Unit Production Goals Appear in Same Document.

After looking over the years at the program evaluations posted on the federal Office of Management and Budget [OMB] Expect More website I have often concluded that it is an ambitious yet frequently flawed attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of government programs.

Take for example OMB’s recently updated evaluation of HUD competitive homeless programs, one of the few programs at HUD that OMB rates as “moderately effective”.

OMB’s detailed evaluation of the HUD program can be found here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail/10001234.2005.html#performanceMeasures

Problem #1-OMB States Goal First as 20,000 Chronic Homeless Units and Then As 40,000 Units-Which Is it?

OMB’s Strategic Planning Question 2.1 asks: Does the program have a limited number of specific long-term performance measures that focus on outcomes and meaningfully reflect the purpose of the program?

The OMB evaluation provides this as the answer:

“The overall long-term goal of the Homeless Assistance Grants is to end chronic homelessness and to help homeless families and individuals move to permanent housing and to live as independently as possible. The first part of the goal is measured with the following long-term measure: "Within the next five years (2005 - 2009), HUD will create 40,000 new units of permanent housing for chronically homeless individuals.”

However in the same report, in the Program Performance Measures section, OMB states the outcome goal as: “Within the next five years (2005 - 2009), HUD will create 20,000 new units of permanent housing for chronically homeless individuals.”

My Evaluation: The goal is either 20,000 or 40,000 units over 5 years but it can’t be both.

Problem #2—150,000 Unit Goal—Who is Going to Produce and Track?

If that outright conflict were not enough, consider another strategic planning question, number 2.7 which asks: Are Budget requests explicitly tied to accomplishment of the annual and long-term performance goals, and are the resource needs presented in a complete and transparent manner in the program's budget?

OMB’s evaluation provides this as the answer:

“HUD's 2006 budget request for Homeless Assistance Grants is tied specifically to accomplishing the long-term goal of ending chronic homelessness. This goal can be accomplished by creating 150,000 permanent supportive housing units. HUD requested nearly $200 million in new funds for 2006 to create approximately 8,000 more units towards this goal. “

My Evaluation: Projection of the cited 8,000 HUD units annually would seem to confirm the 40,000 unit 5 year target. However, since HUD is by far the largest Homeless funder, and if it’s funds are going to produce only 40,000 units, WHO is going to produce, pay for , and track progress on the 110,000 remaining unit goal?