The Chicago Housing Authority is among several housing agencies across the country being audited by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General.
The federal agency is reviewing the CHA’s procedures for verifying residents’ immigration status and criminal background, according to a news report.
The CHA audit covers the period from September 1, 2022, to August 31, 2025, the notice said.
In the audit notice, HUD requested that the following information be made available to its senior auditor: “current and past investigative proceedings, legal proceedings, and any known instances of fraud related to the subject matter being reviewed … previous audits or other studies related to the audit objectives, full legal name and Employer Identification Number (EIN) or Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) as applicable.”
The CHA probe is another effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to crack down on immigration and criminal activity in Chicago and other Democratic cities across the country.
“The objective of our audit is to (1) determine whether the Authority complied with HUD’s and its own requirements for verifying eligibility of individuals for HUD-assisted housing based on criminal activity, citizenship, and immigration status, and (2) assess the Authority’s practices for preventing and addressing criminal activity,” the audit notice said.
HUD spokesperson Matthew Maley said in a statement that HUD Secretary Scott Turner told public housing authorities earlier this year of “our intent to fully carry out the law and do all in HUD’s power to ensure no illegals or ineligibles are receiving HUD assistance. To that end, we are using all resources to audit PHAs across the country to ensure only eligible families receive assistance, including on the ground investigations like that going on in Chicago.”
Maley also said, “HUD is taking bold action to restore law and order to ensure that public housing is safe housing.”
In August, Turner posted a video on X of his Fox News interview, where he said his agency had notified the District of Columbia Housing Authority that it had 30 days to turn over information regarding the citizenship status of its residents.
“We are telling the same to the more than 3,000 Public Housing Authorities across the country,” Turner wrote in the post.
Turner also said in the video that HUD is gathering data to make sure “no one doing criminal activity is living in HUD-funded housing.”
The CHA is also under pressure to comply with Trump administration orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The housing authority sued HUD in October over the issue but later withdrew the lawsuit after HUD granted the CHA an extension for its budget submission.
With approximately 65,000 households and a $1 billion budget, the CHA is the third-largest housing authority in the country, after New York City and Puerto Rico. About 86 percent of CHA households are Black, and 87 percent of those households are headed by women, according to CHA figures.
Most recently, HUD notified Boston Mayor Michelle Wu that the federal agency was opening an investigation into the city’s “housing policies, practices, and programs,” alleging Wu’s administration was violating the Fair Housing Act by setting out to “smuggle ‘racial equity into every layer of operations in City government’,” citing the mission of the city’s equity and inclusion team.