The Nation - News from Sept. 22, 1989

Federal housing auditors have discovered nearly $300,000 in additional payments to consultants who won lucrative rent subsidies for developers, bringing the known total of such payments to $6 million. The payments, detailed in a new report to the Senate Banking Committee by HUD’s inspector general, included $57,500 more to former Housing and Urban Development official Joseph Strauss. Strauss is by far the most highly paid known HUD consultant with more than $1.7 million in fees in the last five years. The consulting fees were paid by developers seeking subsidies from HUD’s Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Program. It was an April audit of that program that triggered the current congressional, internal and Justice Department investigations of fraud, mismanagement and influence peddling.