California housing department mismanaged COVID-19 funds for the homeless, audit says
“The California Department of Housing and Community Development did not properly distribute federal relief funds meant to help homeless residents during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the mismanagement was so prolonged that local organizations might lose the money because of missed deadlines, auditors said Tuesday.
After receiving $316 million under the federal CARES Act to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on unhoused people, the department ‘did not take critical steps to ensure those funds promptly benefited that population,’ the state auditor’s office said in a report.
The department was in charge of distributing the funds to local groups that collaborate on homeless services and prevention under the so-called continuum of care. It took so long to finalize contracts that the local entities did not have access to much of the funding during the height of the pandemic, auditors found.”