Fraud: Landscape guys faking photos for federal payouts?
Topline: The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent $714 million paying outside contractors to take care of houses and condominiums owned by the federal government in 2023, but the contractors may be digitally altering the date stamps of photographs to pretend they are doing their job properly, according to a new federal audit.
One photo shows a house with green grass and trees full of leaves on April 3, 2023. Another photo shows the same house with brown grass and no leaves on April 21, 2023. It would be almost impossible for the change to happen in just a few weeks.
Key facts: The Federal Housing Administration is a subagency of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that provides mortgage insurance for lenders. If a homeowner defaults on their loan, the FHA pays the lender the money they lost and takes ownership of the house. This allows lenders to sell houses to buyers that would otherwise be too risky.
There is currently no way to make sure the properties are “being maintained in an adequate condition,” according to the agency’s inspector general. HUD has no “clear and uniform” process to make sure its contractors are taking care of the houses.
The inspector general investigated 79 properties. There were 34 that had some sort of issue, such as broken windows or a very damaged fence, even though the contractors in charge of maintenance claimed that everything was fine.
Seven of the properties had health and safety hazards that contractors would have been required to fix within one day if a HUD official had notified them — which they did not.
Almost 80% of the problematic properties had photos with date stamps that showed signs of being digitally altered.
The auditors estimated that if they reviewed every single contractor report, there would be 4,893 with inaccuracies.
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Background: The Federal Housing Administration has been a major target for the Department of Government Efficiency. More than 40% of the staff at its parent office were laid off earlier this year.
Summary: A picture isn’t worth a thousand words if no one checks to ensure the picture is accurate. HUD officials must be sure they are spending the public’s money responsibly.
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