On 10 February employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development received an email asking that they list all contracts at their bureau and note if it was “critical” for the agency as well as if it contained any DEI elements. The email was sent by Scott Langmack who identified himself as the senior adviser of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. According to his LinkedIn profile, Langmack has a second job: He is the chief operating office of Kukun. This property technology company is, according its website, “a leading player in the industry”. Websitestates that the company is “on a mission to aggregate the hard to find data.”
This could create a conflict, as it has with other DOGE operatives. Tom Krause is, for example, a fiscal assistant secretary in the Treasury, while also holding a day job at a software CEO of a company that has millions of dollars of contracts with the Treasury.
WIRED has identified Michael Mirski as a DOGE operative. Mirski works for TCC Management in Michigan, which owns and operates mobile homes parks across the US. He graduated from Wharton School of Business in 2014. (In a In a story that he wrote for the website of the school, he claimed that the most important lesson he learned was to “Develop infrastructure to collect data.” According to the documents he has write rights on a system that controls access to HUD systems. Records reviewed by WIRED reveal that the DOGE operatives can access five different HUD systems. According to an HUD source who has direct knowledge of the DOGE operatives, they have access to vast amounts of data. The data includes the names and financial information of each federal public housing voucher holder, information about the hospitals, nursing home, multifamily housing and senior living facilities, as well information on the federally insured mortgages, environmental and health hazards, and the homelessness rates. Experts and HUD sources claim that all of this information could provide a unique insight into the US property market.
Kukun refused to comment on whether Langmack receives a salary at HUD, or how long he plans to be with the department. A woman who answered the telephone at TCC Management headquarters, but did not identify her self, said Mirksi is “on leave until July.” Responding to a question about Langmack’s ability to access systems, HUD spokesperson Kasey lovett stated, “DOGE, HUD, and other departments work together; to suggest otherwise would be false.” To illustrate this unified goal, the secretary created a HUD-DOGE taskforce. In response to questions about Mirski’s access to systems, background and qualifications, Lovett said, “We will not comment on individual personnel.” We are focused on working together as a team to serve the American people.
Property technology, also known as proptech, is a market that includes a variety of companies who offer products and services to automate landlord-tenant interactions or speed up the home buying process. Kukun helps homeowners and real-estate investors estimate the return on their investment from renovating properties, and uses predictive analytics to model where property values are likely to rise in the future.
To make this type of estimation, you’ll need to use an automated valuation model (AVM), which is a machine-learning algorithm that predicts prices or rents for certain properties. In April 2024 Kukun is one of eight companies that were selected to receive support by REACH, a venture capital arm of NAR. Last year, NAR The settlement was reached with Missouri homebuyers who claimed that realtor fees and listing requirements were anticompetitive.
Fabian Braesemann is a researcher with the Oxford Internet Institute. He says that if you can predict a neighborhood’s development better than others, you can invest. Data is needed to make machine-learning models more accurate and monetizable. It is unclear what Langmack and Mirski use or interpret in their roles at HUD. However, it is clear that they have access a wide range sensitive data.
Accordingly to HUD employees who spoke with WIRED under the condition of anonymity there is a six-person DOGE working within the department. Four HUD employees, whose tenures predate current administration, have been assigned to this group. The other two are Mirski and Langmack. The records reviewed by WIRED reveal that Mirski was given read-only and read-write access to three HUD systems. Langmack, on the other hand, had read-only and read/write access to HUD’s two core systems.
From the perspective of one source, it is positive that DOGE operatives were given application-level access rather than direct database access. Theoretically, this means they can only interact directly with the data via user interfaces and not have direct access to the servers, which could allow for them to execute queries on the database, or make irreparable or unrestricted changes. This source does not see the dangers of granting such a level of access.
They said that there were “probably a dozen or more ways” [application-level] allowing read/write access in WASS or LOCCS would translate into the entire databases getting exfiltrated. Although there is no reason to believe that DOGE operatives may have improperly moved data, even the possibility of this happening would violate standard security protocols which HUD sources claim are usually in place. According to records reviewed by WIRED
LOCCS or Line of Credit Control System is the first system in which both DOGE and HUD operatives have read-only access. LOCCS is HUD’s bank system. It “handles cash management and disbursement for the majority of HUD grants programs,” according a user guide. Every year, billions of dollars are pumped through the system to fund everything from public housing and disaster relief (such as rebuilding after the recent LA wildfires) to food security programs and rental payments.
According to a WIRED review of the LOCCS records, the current balance is over $100 billion. This money Congress has approved for projects at HUD but has not yet been used. A source at the agency claims that a large portion of this money was earmarked for disaster assistance and community-development work.
According to department employees, access to LOCCS is normally granted after additional processing and approvals. Most users only have “read” rights.
According to one person, “Read/write access is used on the LOCCS’s side for executing grants and contracts.” It has strict banking procedures when it comes to handling funds. You need two people to approve decisions, just like you would in a bank. According to HUD. Section 8 is a federal housing program administered by local housing agencies. It provides rental assistance in the form vouchers to eligible tenants. Millions of lower-income householdsare affected. This system is a precursor of LOCCS. It is being phased out but is still used to process housing vouchers. It contains a large amount of personal information.
Currently, there are According to HUD data, 2.3 million families receive housing vouchers in the US but the HUDCAPS data contains information on a much larger number of individuals, because historical data is kept, according a source who is familiar with the system. HUD housing vouchers require applicants to provide sensitive personal information such as medical records and personal narratives.
The source states that “people entrust their stories to HUD.” “It is not data that’s in these systems. It’s operational confidence.”
The WASS, or Web Access Security Subsystemis the third system that DOGE has both read-write access to. However, according to documents reviewed and reviewed by WIRED, only Mirski has this access. It’s used for granting permissions to HUD systems. “Most of WASS’ functionality is based on looking up information in different tables to tell the subsystem security who you are, what you can do, and where you can go,” user manual says.
WASS is an application that provides rights to many, if not all, other HUD systems, says a HUD employee familiar with the system who is shocked at Mirski’s level access. Normally, HUD employees do not have read-only access, much less write-only access. “WASS is a system that sets permissions for other systems.”
Documents show Mirski also has read-only access for two more systems. The Integrated Disbursement and Information System, or IDIS, is a database that tracks HUD programs across the country. HUD source: “IDIS contains confidential information about the locations of domestic violence shelters, so even reading it is terrible.” The other database is the Financial Assessment of Public Housing(FASS-PH), which is designed to “measure financial conditions of public housing agencies” and “assess their ability to provide decent and safe housing”according to HUD website.
This “https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/CFO/documents/eLOCCS_Getting_Started_Guide-Sept_2022.pdf”is important because, in addition, to the potential privacy violations, knowing the contents of the records or having access to them presents a serious conflict of interest.
Erin McElroy is an assistant professor at University of Washington. She says that there are often bids for any development projects. She claims that “I can imagine insider information benefiting the private sector or those who move back into the market.”
HUD oversees the mobile home market, an area where TCC Management focuses, and which has recently deleted its website. One source says “It’s been a growing area of HUD’s work and focus over the past few decades,” ; this includes setting standards for building, inspecting factories and taking complaints. This creates another conflict of interest.
Braesemann explains that it’s possible that people from the private sector don’t understand the purpose of HUD programs. He notes that Section 8 housing could be perceived to be out of sync with market forces. “Because the real estate value might be higher, these people should go somewhere else,” he says, even though its purpose is to buffer against market forces. HUD, like other government agencies is facing mass purges. NPR reported on the termination of 84 percent of staff at the Office of Community Planning and Development (which supports homeless people). The president of a union that represents HUD workers estimated up to half of the workforce could be reduced. Matt Giles and Tim Marchman provided reporting.