The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently released a study that assesses the efficiency and cost effectiveness of multiple federal housing programs with similar goals, products and often parallel delivery systems. GAO proposes that there are opportunities to further increase collaboration and alignment among the agencies that administer these programs, namely the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Rural Development (RD), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the U.S. Department of Treasury (Treasury).

Particularly pertaining to multifamily housing, GAO mentions the recent efforts within the Rental Policy Working Group (RPWG), a collaborative effort between the White House and agencies that administer multifamily rental housing programs that aims to better align program policies and functionalities. GAO contends that although the agencies participating in the RPWG have made significant strides in aligning sometimes conflicting and redundant requirements, there is still much that could be done to improve collaborative efforts.

For instance, much of the current RPWG efforts have focused on actions that require minimal or no statutory changes, or minimal or no costs. Suggestions for improvement include expanding the RPWG’s guiding principles to include areas in which statutory action across individual agencies and programs may be needed which could help increase overall programmatic efficiency and save additional taxpayer dollars. In addition, GAO suggests the RPWG could conduct coordinated reviews of tax expenditures with related spending programs which would help reduce overlap and inconsistencies in order to ultimately direct scarce resources to the most effective or least costly methods for delivering federal support. Finally, the agency notes that while HUD, USDA, and VA generally agreed with the recommendations, HUD and OMB in particular stated that further actions should wait until after the housing markets stabilize.

NH&RA and its Legislative Policy Leadership Committee have been a frequent participant and commenter on the RPWG activities. Click here to learn more about NH&RA’s Legislative and Policy Leadership Committee.

Click here to read the GAO report.