Trump HUD Hunts Down Fraud in Colorado: 221 Dead People Were Getting Housing

Ready for another exciting episode of "Rampant Welfare Fraud Costs the Taxpayers Billions?" Well, here we are; this time it's Colorado, and the fraud has to do with housing assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Investigators have uncovered 221 people receiving federal housing assistance who have no business receiving it, unless one can consider a coffin or an urn "housing."

That's right. 221 dead people, out of almost 3,000 people in Colorado who were improperly receiving benefits from HUD.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating whether Colorado providers helped nearly 3,000 people swindle taxpayer money from Uncle Sam, The Post has learned.
The investigation comes after an internal HUD audit found that benefits were granted to 221 dead people, while another 87 were otherwise ineligible.
The department also said that another 2,519 beneficiaries will need to undergo additional verification.

Here's the question: Were these just mistakes, the results of bad record-keeping, or deliberate fraud? Not that either is exactly a comfortable finding; when the answer is either criminality or gross incompetence, the taxpayers take a bath either way. And HUD is calling this apparent fraud.

“From deceased tenants to individuals receiving HUD housing benefits who were never supposed to, the Department has questions for HUD-supported housing providers in Colorado, and we expect prompt answers and enforcement action,” a HUD spokesperson told The Post.
The apparent fraud took place in most of the Rocky Mountain State’s 59 public housing agencies (PHAs) and was particularly pronounced in the Denver Housing Authority, a source said.
HUD officials are set to demand PHAs perform additional verification of beneficiaries and remove both deceased tenants and ineligible beneficiaries from their rolls.

And what else is going to happen?

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It seems that housing providers will be required to repay any money distributed to ineligible people to receive it, either through not meeting income requirements or being, well, dead. But if this is fraud, if people lied about their income, or about their family situation, or about Aunt Nora having died, what will happen to them? Will there be any criminal charges? If not, why not?

Colorado isn't the only state where HUD is finding rampant fraud; one of the other locations shouldn't come as any surprise.

HUD has also been scrutinizing other states.
Earlier this week, the Washington Examiner reported that the department plans to dispatch investigators to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., to assess the state of housing programs there.
While the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority spends about $108 million a year on housing assistance, St. Paul only spends $46 million.
HUD’s plans to send staff to Minnesota comes against the backdrop of the $1 billion Feeding Our Future fraud scandal that has roiled the state and follows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations focused on the Twin Cities.

What is it with these blue cities? Something in the water?

It's more likely that these kinds of things are going on because the fraudsters have gotten away with it doing it for so long. In Colorado, so the housing providers have to pay back any benefits wrongly received. Fine, fine. But what about the people who lied? Who cheated the taxpayers out of billions?

Until there are some publicized trials and prison sentences, this kind of fraud will just keep happening. It looks like some people in Minnesota may be going to jail; that, at least, is a start.

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