Reports

Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB’s Office of Consumer Response collects, monitors, and responds to consumer complaints on financial services and products. The CFPB uses these consumer complaints to help inform the agency’s supervision activities, enforce federal consumer financial laws, and write rules and regulations. With an increase in consumer complaints as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Consumer Response faces an operational risk with respect to the timeliness in which it can respond to consumer complaints. We plan to assess the effectiveness of the CFPB’s processes for reviewing and responding to consumer complaints. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Board established the PPPLF to extend credit to financial institutions that originate loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration’s guaranteed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), taking the PPP loans as collateral. The PPPLF, managed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and operated out of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks, distributed billions of dollars to eligible lenders. We will assess the effectiveness of internal controls to (1) determine lender eligibility, extend credit, and process repayments and (2) identify at-risk advances, handle instances of nonpayment, and detect and mitigate fraud. We also plan to assess the extent to which the Federal Reserve System coordinates with the U.S. Small Business Administration to determine lender eligibility, recover losses due to nonpayment, and detect and mitigate fraud.

The OIG is conducting an audit of the Office on Violence Against Women’s Grant Administration due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.  The preliminary objectives are to assess: (1) the grant administration and monitoring during the pandemic and (2) the guidance and assistance provided to grant recipients for addressing any increased risks to effective program implementation and to violence against women.

HUD OIG will summarize the conclusions/findings and recommendations reported by seven participating OIGs and the General Accountability Office related to natural disaster preparedness.  Our objective is to inform Federal agencies and the OIG community of the reported conclusions/findings and recommendations regarding preparing for and responding to natural disasters.
 

The OIG is conducting a survey of inmates in BOP-managed federal prisons regarding BOP's COVID-19 pandemic response.

HUD OIG is conducting a limited review of HUD's administration of supplemental operating funds under the CARES Act. The CARES Act authorized an additional $685 million in public housing operating funds to prevent, prepare for, and respond to COVID-19.  The review objective is to assess Public Housing Agencies' (PHA) experiences and challenges and HUD's efforts in providing guidance related to the administration of supplemental operating funds under the CARES Act.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has initiated a review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) use of home confinement as a tool to mitigate the effect of the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic on the federal prison population.  The review will assess the BOP’s process for implementing the use of home confinement as authorized under the CARES Act, the process for its consideration of the eligibility criteria outlined in the Attorney General’s March 26 and April 3, 2020 memoranda, and the process by which BOP headquarters evaluated wardens’ recommendations that inmates who did not meet the Attorney General’s criteria be placed in home confinement.  The review will also select particular cases for examination to determine whether there were irregularities in the BOP’s processes.  If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review.  The OIG is undertaking this review in response to requests from Members of Congress, and issues the OIG identified during the series of remote inspections it has conducted regarding the BOP’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that we are researching prior audits of HUD’s Single Family Default Monitoring System to provide HUD information regarding lessons learned and risks identified in these prior audits that HUD should act on now to ensure program integrity and mitigate the risk of financial loss for COVID-19 related forbearance assistance and foreclosure moratorium related to single family loans.

The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that we are researching prior audits of HUD’s partial claims loss mitigation option to provide HUD information regarding lessons learned and risks identified in these prior audits that HUD should act on now to ensure program integrity and mitigate the risk of financial loss for COVID-19 related partial claims.

HUD OIG is researching Public and Indian Housing and Multifamily use of vacant units during previously Presidentially Declared Disasters and the COVID-19 declared Disaster, as well as PIH and Multifamily’s ability to place a waitlist preference for the homeless and how many homeless individuals had a 50058 or 50059 new move-in during the COVID pandemic.  Since the introduction of the CARES act, there has been an emphasis to review how HUD has reacted to the COVID-19 disaster.  HUD allocated $1 billion to keep America's homeless population safe.  The purpose of this research is to issue memorandums for both PIH and Multifamily addressing the research topics.