Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson revealed on Wednesday that a recent HUD report identifying potential fraudulent rent assistance payments demonstrates how swiftly fraud can escalate when financial oversight is relaxed.
“The tentacles of this fraud extend very deep,” Carson stated, noting he was “alarmed at how much fraud and misuse of funding there was” during his tenure at the agency. Carson highlighted that under President Donald Trump’s first term—when he served as HUD secretary—the agency significantly reduced fraud through tightened financial controls and enhanced oversight measures. However, he observed a resurgence of issues under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
According to the report discussed on Wednesday, approximately 30,000 deceased individuals and thousands of noncitizens received federal funding during the Biden administration, with improper payments totaling billions of dollars. Carson emphasized that financial controls must remain robust to prevent such misuse: “When you don’t put the financial controls in place, payments can be made for people who are dead or to ineligible projects.”
Carson noted that the Trump administration’s efforts led to a notable decline in fraud complaints at HUD within about 18 months. “Before the Trump era, there were persistent allegations of fraud at HUD—’used to hear it all the time,'” he recalled. “It took about a year and a half before you stopped hearing that because we put so much effort into wiping out the fraud.”
The former secretary recently spoke with HUD Secretary Scott Turner and his staff regarding the report’s findings, describing them as “quite astonishing.” Carson warned that once lax oversight is introduced, fraud can quickly rebound across federal agencies. “It didn’t take very long for the Biden administration to relax those controls,” he said. “And this is what happens—fraud occurs in HUD and other government departments.”
Carson also addressed recent allegations of fraud in Minnesota involving daycare centers, stating the scale of misconduct makes it difficult to dismiss as a coincidence: “They came to at least 50 different centers, and there were no kids in any of them. You have to be really gullible to believe that’s a coincidence.”
