GAO New Recovery Report Includes Lengthy Review of Status of HUD Recovery Act Spending for PHA Capital Grants.

The GAO has issued a new report on the status of the economic Recovery. GAO-09-1016 is dated September 23, 2009 and is titled Funds Continue to Provide Fiscal Relief to States and Localities, While Accountability and Reporting Challenges Need to Be Fully Addressed.

Report versions available:

Summary (HTML)

Highlights Page (PDF)

Full Report (PDF, 163 pages)

A 21 page review of HUD's Recovery Act Funding of PHA Capital Grant programs can be found on PDF pages 87-108 of the full report and includes a review of spending to date (with graphs and charts) as well as the status of planned jobs reporting for this program. A summary of the spending for Capital Grants from the report:

As of September 5, 2009, 2,211 public housing agencies (71 percent of the housing agencies that entered into agreements with HUD for Recovery Act funds) had reported to HUD that they had obligated a total of $957 million, or about 32 percent of the total Capital Fund formula funds HUD allocated to them. According to HUD officials, housing agencies report obligations when they have entered into binding commitments to undertake specific projects. A majority of housing agencies that had obligated funds—1,578 of 2,211 housing agencies—had also drawn down funds in order to pay for project expenses already incurred. In total, public housing agencies had drawn down almost $146 million, or just less than 5 percent of the total HUD allocated to them. Funds drawn down increased by $114 million from the level reported as of June 20, 2009.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog