134-0: Minnesota House Unanimously Kills the $100 Million Fraud Program Walz Let Spiral Out of Control
Budgeted at $2.6 million. Ballooned past $100 million. Investigators found bribes, falsified records, and billing for dead clients. #Minnesota
134-0: Minnesota House Unanimously Kills $100 Million Fraud Factory
The Minnesota House of Representatives just did something you almost never see in American politics: they voted 134 to 0. Every Republican. Every Democrat. Not a single dissenting vote. The target? A housing program so riddled with fraud that it ballooned from a $2.6 million annual budget to over $100 million in taxpayer money — under Governor Tim Walz's watch.
What Was the Housing Stabilization Services Program?
The program was designed to help disabled and senior Minnesotans avoid homelessness or institutionalization — a legitimate and important purpose. It was originally budgeted at $2.5 to $3 million per year through the Department of Human Services (DHS).
Instead, it exploded to over $100 million in just four years. And the money wasn't going to vulnerable seniors.
What the Investigations Found
KARE 11 Investigates began publishing reports last spring that uncovered fraud so widespread it read like a criminal playbook:
Questionable billing — providers submitting claims that didn't match services rendered
Bribes — payments to participants to sign up for services they didn't need or receive
Falsified records — fabricated documentation to justify billing
Billing for dead clients — yes, they were literally charging the state for people who had died
DHS Inspector General James Clark acknowledged the scale of the problem: "Too many fraudulent, unqualified bad actors have likely stolen money from our state's taxpayers, and also cheated Minnesotans who need housing services."
Republicans Had Been Sounding the Alarm
House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) didn't hold back, calling the shutdown "the right decision, but too little, too late." She added: "Once again, state agencies failed to catch fraud in real time. Instead of stopping it, they're scrambling after the fact, after millions of taxpayer dollars have already been stolen."
Rep. Kristin Robbins (R-Maple Grove), who chairs the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Committee, was even more pointed: "This is a stunning admission of just how deeply broken this program has become under the Walz administration's watch."
Robbins and other Republicans have been pushing for a federal audit of DHS since hearings began, arguing that the fraud goes well beyond "the few raids and arrests made public so far."
The Walz Problem
This isn't the first massive fraud scandal under Walz's leadership. Minnesota has also been dealing with the Feeding Our Future fraud — a $250 million scheme to steal federal child nutrition funds that became one of the largest pandemic-era fraud cases in the country. The pattern is consistent: programs created or expanded with good intentions, virtually no oversight, and hundreds of millions of dollars walking out the back door.
Walz has now listed codifying the removal of Housing Stabilization Services as a priority in his anti-fraud legislative package — essentially taking credit for shutting down a program that his own administration allowed to spiral out of control.
The Grassroots Lesson
A 134-0 vote means even Democrats in Minnesota couldn't defend this program anymore. When both parties agree that a government program is so broken it has to be erased from the statute books entirely, that tells you everything about how badly state agencies failed.
The real victims are the disabled and senior Minnesotans who legitimately needed housing help — and who were abandoned by a system too incompetent to stop criminals from looting it. That's the cost of government without accountability.
Further Reading
• KARE 11: Minnesota House Unanimously Passes Bill to Remove Housing Program
• KNSI Radio: State Shuts Down Housing Program After $100M Fraud