Reason #5624 That Trump Was Elected

Dear Taxpayers: Thanks For Funding Housing For These “Nonexistent Tenants”

The federal government spends a massive amount of money either paying for or partially subsidizing public housing for lower income Americans. It’s a set of programs which have always been fraught with problems, but it does at least serve a very real need for some of the most vulnerable citizens. But if we’re going to be spending the money on paying the rent, it would be nice to know that the people benefiting from Uncle Sam’s largess at least… exist, right? Turns out you really can’t assume anything these days. (Free Beacon)

The Department of Housing and Urban Development spent over $500,000 on apartments for people who “did not exist,” according to the agency’s inspector general.
An audit released last month found that managers of Section 8 housing in Jefferson County, Texas, defrauded the government by stealing the identities of former tenants and falsifying incomes.
The government subsidizes the rent of 99 units at Beverly Place Apartments in Groves, Texas, and paid the complex $1.8 million between January 2013 and December 2015.

The HUD Inspector General’s office had a number of things to say about Beverly Place Apartments and other units like it, most of them phrased in rather low-key ways. They assert that the owner billed the government for 97 tenants who either “did not exist or whose income eligibility was either falsified or unsupported.” In other words, some of the residents of Beverly Place probably earned too much money to qualify for subsidized housing. And for the rest of the units, the people supposedly living there were entirely fictional or had moved out some time ago. But the owner was still billing Uncle Sam (or, in other words, billing you the taxpayers) and essentially just pocketing the cash.

Now multiply that times thousands of counties around the US where bureaucrats are judged for their ability to push money out the door than justifying that spending.