	Introduction

Because public housing represents a $90 billion investment on the part of the federal government since the program’s inception in 1937 and because the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) currently spends $5.4 billion a year on operating subsidies and modernization grants for this housing, interest remains keen in knowing how well local public housing authorities (PHA) are managing their properties. As agreed with the Chairman’s office, we reviewed whether HUD’s field offices are using PHMAP and complying with the program’s statutory and regulatory requirements to monitor and provide technical assistance to housing authorities, whether PHMAP scores have increased and how HUD uses the program to inform HUD’s Secretary and the Congress about the performance of housing authorities, and whether PHMAP scores are consistently accurate and can be considered a generally accepted measure of good property management. After the reorganization, however, the responsibilities of individual field office staff became more specialized to focus on the rules and regulations of specific public housing operations.This specialization confused some staff in field offices and housing authorities as well as impaired the ability of some field offices to provide technical assistance. Over the life of the program, HUD has confirmed 6.7 percent of all PHMAP scores. Recommendation

To make better use of the limited resources it has to devote to the oversight of public housing, we recommend that HUD provide guidance to its field offices that clearly (1) articulates their minimally acceptable roles regarding oversight and assistance to housing authorities and (2) emphasizes the importance of using the results of the independent audits to better target HUD’s limited technical assistance resources. The number of troubled authorities reached 83 in 1995, with half of that total consisting of the smallest housing authorities (those managing fewer than 100 units). As shown in table 3.2, the number of high performing authorities grew each year, rising from 1,033 (33 percent) in 1992 to 1,791 (57 percent) in 1995. Also, by 1995, nearly 50 percent of all public housing units were under the management of high-performing authorities. They said that some PHAs with scores over 90 have management problems that the program’s indicators do not measure. They also believed that other uses would be inappropriate because of the limited number of confirmatory reviews the field offices perform and the proportion of PHMAP scores that have been changed after a review.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) use of its Public Housing Management Assessment Program (PHMAP), focusing on: (1) HUD's use and implementation of the program at its field offices; (2) public housing authorities' PHMAP scores over the first 4 years of the program; and (3) limits on any additional uses for the program.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) most of HUD's field offices are using PHMAP to identify troubled housing authorities and target HUD's limited technical assistance resources; (2) however, the field offices have not been systematically using the assessment program, as required by statutes and regulations, to monitor housing authorities' progress in improving their performance and target technical assistance to them; (3) the impact of a 1995 reorganization of the field offices' functions and current departmental downsizing continue to influence some offices' ability to provide technical assistance; (4) performance scores generally have increased during the first 4 full years of the program; (5) with average scores increasing, the total number of troubled housing authorities has decreased, and the greatest proportion of those that are troubled are the smallest authorities, those managing fewer than 100 units; (6) the proportion of high-performing authorities has increased steadily from about 33 percent in 1992 to over 50 percent in 1995; (7) high-performing authorities manage nearly 50 percent of all public housing units; (8) periodically, HUD officials provide the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Congress information on the performance of all housing authorities as well as the number of troubled authorities; (9) HUD's confirmatory reviews of the information underlying assessment scores have shown the scores to be inaccurate in half the instances when such reviews were performed; (10) regardless of the scores' accuracy, HUD and public housing industry officials do not believe that the management assessment program comprehensively assesses how well local housing authorities manage their properties; and (11) this is because the assessment program does not include indicators to specifically measure overall housing quality or the quality of maintenance.