Many are asking where HUD Secretary Scott Turner is these days. With nothing much to show for his term in office other than ~$400,000 owed to Labor in a time they can least afford it, it appears to be yet another nail in the coffin of the upcoming mid-terms.
HUD awarded 24 Asset Management six Field Service Management vehicles in November 2023. The work did not actually roll out until 2024. Every one of those vehicles stops taking new orders on November 1, 2026, and the people who performed the work are still waiting to be paid.
Field Service Technicians and Inspectors did the work. HUD paid its contractor the awarded rate for that work. At least $353,679.50 of it never reached them, and Foreclosurepedia’s running figure approaches $400,000.
The Penalty Comes First
HUD’s contracts allow liquidated damages against a prime contractor for failing quality control, missing deadlines and misreporting property conditions. HUD introduced that structure in the 3.10 cycle and carried it into 3.12. Every contractor signed it knowing what it meant.
When HUD assesses those damages, it recovers them out of money it owes the contractor. Whatever 24 Asset Management intends, the cash that would have paid Labor is the cash HUD keeps. A penalty does not cancel a debt to Labor. It cancels the money to pay it.
Foreclosurepedia has learned that HUD is withholding on a broad range of grounds. HUD wrote the penalty and HUD collects it. Labor sits behind the department in line and has never been told where the line ends.
HUD Was Warned, And HUD Went Quiet
In 2023, HUD’s procurement office wrote that it was aware of the relationship between 24 Asset Management and Assero Services. Foreclosurepedia kept sending evidence, including a stopped check after six months of completed work, then vendor ledgers and complaints. HUD stopped replying months ago.
The silence did not end the awards. The contracts ran until they were lost, and the people who performed them kept working, then stopped working unpaid.
The Money Nobody Can See
A HUD procurement official told Foreclosurepedia that M&M contracts are paid from FHA fund obligations through a legacy system that feeds no public record. Obligations appear in federal contract data. Outlays do not. Even HUD’s contracting officers cannot see them.
HUD built a system in which the money it pays out cannot be traced by the public, by Labor, or by the officers who manage the work. Its invoices are fixed unit rates, the contract price times services ordered, and they say nothing about whether the people performing the services were paid.
The Arithmetic
Documented, non-overlapping vendor debt includes 2,145 unpaid Puerto Rico properties at $20 each, or $42,900, and 250 Illinois work orders across 27 HUD case numbers totaling $29,286.50. At the $20 rate, $400,000 is 20,000 properties.
That is the first layer. A Field Service Technician or Inspector who is not paid cannot pay the dumpster company, the supplier, the fuel bill or the insurance premium. Diesel passed $6.50 a gallon in September. Foreclosurepedia expects the missed payments to move down the chain, then bankruptcies, then households.
The Replacement
HUD ordered $30,311,207 on 24 Asset Management’s 5A/8A vehicle, which had a $68,001,505 ceiling, or 45 cents on each ceiling dollar. Alpine Companies has now been awarded $51,568,665 for three replacements, signed on the last night of the fiscal year.
HUD can recompete the work in a night. It has not said how Labor gets paid for the work already done.
On Secretary Turner’s Watch
Secretary Turner sat in the chair while Labor remained unpaid, when HUD was asked to act, and when the work was awarded again. He had the authority at every step to intervene, and the buck stopped with him.
What Labor Should Do Right Now
Document every unpaid work order by property, service, date performed and amount. Send written demand. File a complaint with the HUD Office of Inspector General today if you ever hope to get your money back. Ask Alpine, in writing, how and when Labor will be paid before accepting any work. Foreclosurepedia will keep counting.
