HUD housing serves populations that include persons in a position to increase their self-sufficiency and those who need long-term support (for example, the elderly and persons with severe disabilities). To assist those who can improve their self-sufficiency, HUD permits PHAs to allocate space in its public housing to offer training programs and information sessions. It also awards grants to PHAs to encourage them to work with local social service providers in offering education, job training, and other supportive services to residents of public housing and recipients of vouchers. The purpose of these programs is to increase the earned incomes of residents and reduce their reliance on cash assistance and housing assistance. For this report, we examined five HUD programs that fund self-sufficiency efforts in whole or in part. Three grant programs only award grants to support self-sufficiency activities: HCV FSS, PH FSS, and ROSS SC. FSS was authorized in 1990 to help families receiving vouchers or in public housing become self-sufficient through referrals to education, training, and other supportive services and case management. PHAs use grant funds to pay program coordinators who link residents to the supportive services they need to achieve self-sufficiency. Families in either FSS program sign a contract with their PHA, requiring that all family members become independent of cash welfare assistance and the head of the family seek and maintain employment. Both programs feature case management, referrals to supportive services, and an escrow account that accumulates balances, or savings, for the tenant based on increases in tenant contributions toward rent. The ROSS SC program provides funding to hire service coordinators to assess the needs of public housing residents and coordinate available resources in the community to meet those needs. For the FSS programs, the escrow accounts are incentives to increase work effort and earnings. Specifically, when participants have to pay a higher rent after their earned income increases, the PHA calculates an escrow credit that is deposited each month into an interest-bearing account (see fig. 1). Families that successfully complete their contract for either FSS program receive their accrued escrow funds. In general, in order to complete an FSS contract, the family head must certify that no member of the family has received welfare for at least one year, and the family head must be employed. HUD has two other programs—MTW and HOPE VI Revitalization Grants (HOPE VI)—that allow participating PHAs to determine how they will encourage self-sufficiency. The purposes of HUD’s MTW demonstration program include providing PHAs the flexibility to design and test policies that give incentives to families with children to become economically self- sufficient. For example, PHAs in MTW can alter eligibility and rent policies. Through the HOPE VI program, participating PHAs (HOPE VI agencies) can use HOPE VI grants to demolish, rehabilitate, or replace severely distressed public housing and also provide community and supportive services to help residents achieve self-sufficiency. HOPE VI agencies can spend up to 15 percent of their revitalization grant funds for community and supportive services activities, which HUD defines as any activity designed to promote upward mobility, self-sufficiency, and improved quality of life for residents of the public housing project involved. For the two FSS programs, HUD regulations state that self-sufficiency means that a family is no longer receiving housing assistance or welfare assistance. However, the regulations also indicate that while achieving self-sufficiency is an FSS objective, no longer receiving housing assistance is not a requirement for completing the program and receiving escrow funds. HUD does not define self-sufficiency for the other three programs we reviewed. Thus, HUD does not have a uniform measure of self-sufficiency across the programs. HUD officials with responsibility for administering all five programs noted that a single definition of self- sufficiency would not be useful, particularly because levels of self- sufficiency could differ for different groups. However, officials noted that the concept is commonly understood to indicate that a family does not rely on government programs that are intended to address poverty. HUD, HUD Strategic Plan Fiscal Year 2010-2015 (Washington, D.C.: May 2010). disabilities, services should help improve living conditions and enable residents to age in-place. For the HOPE VI program, indicators of progress towards self-sufficiency include the number of residents who obtained a high school or equivalent education, obtained new employment, and completed a job training program. In contrast, MTW agencies determine their own measures of residents’ progress towards self-sufficiency. In a 2012 report on the MTW program, we reported that HUD had not defined key program terms, including the statutory purpose of encouraging employment and self-sufficiency, and We recommended that HUD issue guidance that clarifies such terms.also noted the limited usefulness of having MTW agencies devise their own metrics, particularly when they are not outcome-oriented. We recommended that HUD improve its guidance to MTW agencies by requiring that they provide performance information that is quantifiable and outcome-oriented. HUD has taken steps to revise its reporting guidance, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved revised guidance on May 31, 2013. HUD requires all PHAs to collect detailed data from their residents. PHAs must submit these data electronically through the PIC at least annually for each household that participates in assisted housing programs. According to HUD guidance, PIC can be used to create reports, analyze programs, monitor PHAs, and provide information about those that live in HUD- subsidized housing. The data collected include amounts and sources of income; the amount of rent paid; and the presence of household heads and members who are elderly or have disabilities. MTW agencies can submit some tenant-related data into a separate module in PIC called MTW-PIC, which was created in 2007 to better accommodate some of the activities allowed under MTW. Most MTW agencies had transitioned to it by 2008. PHAs that receive either of the FSS grants, including MTW agencies, must report additional data about participating households into a section of the PIC and MTW-PIC systems called the FSS Addendum. The addendum captures data on each family when it enters either of the two FSS programs and should be updated annually. Specifically, the addendum includes fields for PHAs to report whether the head of the household works full-time, part-time, or is unemployed; the highest grade of education for the head of the household; and the sources of assistance received by the family, such as cash or food assistance. The annual totals for grant awards in the two FSS and ROSS SC programs have increased in recent years. As shown in table 2, the amount HUD awarded to PHAs in constant 2013 dollars through the two FSS programs increased from about $64 million in fiscal year 2006 to about $78 million in fiscal year 2011, with the majority of funds being awarded through the HCV FSS program. For the ROSS SC program, the total amount awarded, in constant 2013 dollars, increased from $30 million in fiscal year 2008 to $35 million in fiscal year 2011. Escrow payments to households represent additional program expenditures associated with the two FSS programs. As previously described, PHAs establish escrow accounts for households that participate in FSS. PHAs generally disburse the amount in the escrow account (the excess of any amount owed to the PHA by the family) to the head of the family when the contract of participation has been completed. As previously noted, in order to successfully complete an FSS contract, the head of the family must be employed and no members may be receiving welfare. According to HUD data adjusted to 2013 dollars, the agency disbursed nearly $82 million to FSS participants between fiscal years 2006 and 2011 (see table 3). Expenditures for community and supportive services, adjusted to 2013 dollars, represented 7 percent or less of HOPE VI grant awards during fiscal years 2006-2010. HUD data indicate that the 29 PHAs that were awarded HOPE VI revitalization grants between fiscal years 2006 and 2010 had spent about 5 percent of these funds on community and supportive services as of December 2012 (see table 4). Of the 29 grants, 4 were closed and 25 were open. HOPE VI agencies with open grants could spend more of their revitalization grant on supportive services, up to 15 percent. HOPE VI agencies also can leverage other sources of funding for community and supportive services. The amounts that MTW agencies spend on activities intended to increase resident self-sufficiency are not known for the program as a whole. MTW agencies are not required to expend a specific proportion of their HUD funds on activities that encourage work and self-sufficiency. However, they must implement activities that address the program’s statutory purposes (which include encouraging work and self-sufficiency), and annually submit written reports to HUD with information on each activity they undertake and its linkage to the program’s statutory purposes. MTW agencies had been required to annually report to HUD financial data on the sources and uses of their funds. A HUD official with responsibility for administering the MTW program stated that the agency had not analyzed this information and that MTW agencies had reported it using varying formats. According to HUD, with the implementation of revised MTW reporting requirements, MTW agencies will be required to report data on the costs of self-sufficiency activities using standardized metrics. Residents’ participation in the five self-sufficiency programs was not comprehensively known because the data were not reliable, aggregated programwide, or collected for all participants. Internal control standards state that transactions should be promptly recorded to maintain their relevance and value to management in controlling operations and making decisions. This applies to the entire life cycle of a transaction or event.