House panel holds off on subpoena for housing documents

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan had asked the panel to give his agency a chance to voluntarily produce the requested documents, Neugebauer said. 

Lawmakers agreed that if HUD doesn’t produce the requested information within a certain amount of time that they would consider moving forward with the subpoena. 

“If they continue to withhold will come back and do a subpoena,” Neugebauer said. 

After a short recess, panel ranking member Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) said lawmakers had reached an understanding with HUD on what is “agreeable and doable.”

The panel has been prodding HUD for about six months for specific documents in relation to the program’s spending habits..

In talks with the agency the list of those needed have been pared back significantly, Neugebauer said. 

“If a subpoena at this time is avoidable, it should be avoided,” he said. 

In the past, Capuano said he has voted for subpoenas and he would do so again in the future but he wanted to be sure that the panel was moving forward in “a professional manner instead of a confrontational one.” 

Capuano said HUD officials have said that some of the documents may be covered by executive privilege and would likely require court action for the agency to release them to Congress. 

When the hearing first convened, Capuano said he was disappointed because he had only received the details of the subpoena 20 minutes prior to the meeting and he would need about 30 minutes to look it over. 

Lawmakers then returned with an agreement to wait on the subpoena vote.

Last summer and again in late fall, the Washington Post wrote stories criticizing the HOME program’s oversight and results, saying there were about 700 stalled projects. 

The program provides down-payment assistance to help eligible families buy homes and housing vouchers to poor families and those on the brink of homelessness.

Donovan said the newspaper was way off base with its findings and that he had tried to work with the reporters to correct the information and respond to specific questions.

In November, HUD released several changes designed to cinch up federal oversight and ensure that the agency receives better information from state and local governments, requiring them to improve oversight of projects, better assess risk and determine a developer’s capacity and the long-term viability of the project.

The proposed changes also require more frequent reporting by state and local governments, allowing HUD to more closely track projects and set specific timeframes for taking appropriate corrective actions for projects that don’t meet deadlines.

“That’s not to suggest there isn’t a federal role,” Donovan said last summer. “We take our oversight responsibility seriously, by holding localities accountable for spending block grant funds appropriately.”