According to The New York Post, former President Biden’s HUD may have been cutting checks it shouldn’t have — and Minnesota isn’t the only place showing up in the audit trail.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development likely paid out more than $84 million in ineligible assistance to Minnesota during President Joe Biden’s final year in office — including to more than 500 “deceased tenants,” according to officials and documents reviewed by The Post.
HUD’s latest review flagged $84.6 million in potentially erroneous payments in fiscal year 2024 for Minnesota alone.
That included up to $496,000 in improper assistance tied to 509 dead tenants.
Another $246,000 went to 20 people whose Social Security numbers couldn’t be verified — meaning they were likely non-citizens.
And the problem wasn’t confined to one state.
Officials say deceased recipients were found in all 50 states, prompting HUD Secretary Scott Turner to condemn what he called a “massive abuse of taxpayer dollars.”
“Biden’s HUD failed the people of Minnesota — paying dead people while vulnerable families were left behind,” Turner said.
“This gross level of mismanagement and failure to safeguard American taxpayer dollars is unacceptable. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are holding bad actors accountable and will continue to root out rampant fraud in Minnesota and across the country.”
The review comes as Minnesota faces mounting accusations of widespread fraud totaling billions over Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s tenure. Walz dropped his bid for a third term last week amid the scandal.
According to the preliminary audit, the funding flowed to 61 housing authorities across Minnesota — while also noting the review was not able to fully confirm fraud had taken place.
Nationwide, $5.8 billion in “questionable” rental assistance payments were flagged — including to roughly 30,000 “deceased tenants” and “thousands” of possible non-citizens, The Post reported last month.
Of that funding, about 11% went to more than 200,000 possibly ineligible tenants. Among them: 29,715 flagged as potentially deceased, 9,472 flagged as non-citizens, and 165,393 flagged for receiving funding above the assistance threshold in their region.
The broader scale is enormous: $49 billion was spent on more than 4 million households, with $33 billion coming from HUD’s Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) and another $16 billion from Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA).
And watchdogs have been warning about weak controls for years.
Past audits from HUD’s Office of Inspector General faulted both the department and the states receiving the money for failing to put strong anti-fraud measures in place.
A “large concentration” of the questionable funding, the report said, went to housing authorities in New York, California, and Washington, DC.
Full report over at The New York Post:
Biden admin likely paid out $84.6M in error for Minnesota housing assistance — including to hundreds who were already dead https://t.co/xDZa3tiVKn pic.twitter.com/YqpGFrkJV6
— New York Post (@nypost) January 12, 2026
