HUD's Spotty Record on Inspections

Molly Parker shares the findings of an investigation by The Southern Illinoisan and ProPublica into health inspection practices at the Department of Housing and urban Development (HUD). The problems are systematic, according to Parker.

…as thousands of renters across the country have discovered, passing scores on HUD inspections often don’t match the reality of renters’ living conditions. The two-decade-old inspection system — the federal housing agency’s primary oversight tool — is failing low-income families, seniors and people with disabilities and undermining the agency’s oversight of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded rental subsidies…

There's much more on HUD's inspection system—its history and the potential for reform—in the article, in addition to examples of HUD's failures to enforce health standards in public housing in the Southern Illinois region.

In late October, HUD Secretary Ben Caron pledged to lead a "wholesale re-examination" of the inspection process.

According to a separate article written by Suzy Khimm, Laura Strickler, Hannah Rappleye, and Stephanie Gosk, and published a few days before Parker's article, another investigation has found "the number of HUD apartments cited for unsafe, unhealthy and physically deteriorating living conditions has been on the rise. [during the Trump administration]."

"An NBC News investigation has found that more than 1,000 out of HUD’s nearly 28,000 federally subsidized multifamily properties failed their most recent inspection — a failure rate that is more than 30 percent higher than in 2016," according to the article.