He Asked a Federal Inspector General to Investigate a Housing Project in Buffalo. It Isn't in His District. Here Is What Is.

Accountability & Governance Source: Letter to the HUD Office of Inspector General, as reported by the Buffalo News and WIVB MISSING CONTEXT

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Why this matters

Members of Congress choose what to spend their oversight authority on. On September 8, Rep. Langworthy asked the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate a housing project at Canalside in downtown Buffalo. The project is in New York’s 26th District, not his. The same week, the record on this site shows what was pending in his own eight counties: eight hospitals on a federal at-risk list, twenty-eight pharmacies closed since 2023, and $87 million in federal police and counterterrorism grants still withheld from New York with no public word from him. This entry sets the two side by side. It does not say the Buffalo question is illegitimate. It documents which one got the letter.

The letter

Source: Letter to the HUD Office of Inspector General, September 8, 2026, as reported by the Buffalo News and WIVB. From the Buffalo News:

“I am concerned that the project has changed materially since it was competitively solicited and that its extraordinarily high public cost may undermine the purpose of federal affordable housing resources.”

“Federal affordable housing programs should serve families in need – not be used to subsidize unnecessarily expensive development simply because a project occupies a prominent or high-profile location.”

The letter asks the inspector general to review whether HUD resources are involved and all requirements met; whether the increase in public subsidy “raises concerns regarding procurement integrity, internal controls, waste, fraud or abuse”; whether the per-unit cost is an efficient use of federal dollars; and whether anything should be referred to the IRS or the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. To WIVB he said: “I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but let’s examine — were all laws followed.”

The project. Pennrose, a Philadelphia developer, was selected in 2023 after a May 2022 state request for proposals to build 251 apartments, 187 of them affordable, on the North Aud Block at Canalside, a $225 million project now under construction. The RFP cited $10 million in public funding; the project now carries $30 million in federal low-income housing tax credits, $80 million in discretionary grants and a 30-year payment in lieu of taxes, for $152.9 million in government support before the tax break, more than $609,000 per apartment on a cost of $896,000 per unit. Empire State Development, which oversees the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation, defends it: “For three decades, the North Aud Block has generated nothing but blight and zero tax revenue.” A group of Buffalo developers including former Rep. Chris Jacobs wrote to the Governor, Mayor and County Executive in June asking that the project be rebid; Jacobs said the congressman “raises valid and serious points.”

The district. Canalside is in Buffalo, represented by Rep. Tim Kennedy. Census Bureau geocoding of the site’s addresses returns the 26th District. The Buffalo News put it directly: “Langworthy doesn’t represent downtown Buffalo or Canalside but serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.” His senior adviser, Jessica Proud, said that seat “gives him jurisdiction over HUD ‘on a project that affects the region, not just the footprint of the site.’”

The local-control argument, four days earlier

The letter followed, by four days, his own argument against outside interference in local decisions. Defending his BUSES Act in the Energy and Commerce markup on September 2, a bill that uses federal law to override a New York City idling ordinance, he told the city’s members: “yes, I do not live in your district, but it doesn’t stop you from opining about how we should heat our homes in my district” (committee recording, 119:03; see the BUSES entry). His September 4 caption on that clip: “NYC liberals love forcing their radical agenda on rural communities like NY23… But the second we try to stop their asinine bus-driver bounty scheme… the socialists all of a sudden want local control. Rules for thee, not for me.”

Within the same week, then, the record shows federal preemption of a city law, a federal probe request into another district’s state-run project, and a caption faulting downstate members for wanting local control. Each can be defended on its own terms; his office’s “affects the region” rationale is one such defense. What the record does not contain is a principle of local control that applies to all three.

What was pending in his own district the same week

Each line below is documented in its own entry on this site, with sources.

In NY-23Status, September 2026His public action on the record
Eight hospitals on the Fiscal Policy Institute’s at-risk list, “the most of any district in the state”; Brooks-TLC in Dunkirk at 97% Medicaid and public-appropriation dependenceModeled on the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which he voted for (Roll Call 190)June 2026 town hall: “every rural hospital that I’ve met is not on the verge of closure no matter what people are trying to sell you”
$87 million in FY2025 Homeland Security Grant Program funds still withheld from New York, including $17.7 million for the state program that funds county sheriffs and police in all eight NY-23 countiesWithheld nearly a year after the President’s restoration promise; court order forced the $100 million that did arriveNo public statement located in his press archive or on either Facebook page (re-checked September 4); colleagues Malliotakis, Lawler and Garbarino appealed publicly
28 community pharmacies closed since January 2023; Mayville, Silver Creek, Eden, Alfred, Salamanca and Lancaster left with none registered in their ZIPCorporate bankruptcies, not federal policy; documented as suchNo statement located
Rural Health Transformation Program: $212 million first-year award to New YorkNo NY-23 facility named at the state sub-allocation stageAnnounced three times (Dec. 30, July 15, Sept. 4)
Food insecurity 12.7% to 15.6% in every countySNAP changes in the same July 2025 lawSee the SNAP entries

In plain language: in the week he wrote to a federal inspector general about a project in Buffalo, the largest law-enforcement funding dispute in the state, the largest hospital-risk list in any New York district, and a wave of pharmacy closures were all sitting in his own counties. The record shows a letter for the first and no located statement on the second or third.

The fair reading

  • Oversight jurisdiction is real. The Oversight Committee’s reach is not limited by district lines, and a member may ask an inspector general to look at any federally funded project. His adviser’s rationale is quoted above in full.
  • The subsidy question is genuinely contested. The per-unit cost and the post-award growth in public support have critics beyond partisan lines; the Buffalo News has covered the 30-year tax break as controversial in its own right. This entry takes no position on the merits.
  • He has acted on district matters this year: the grape-purchase advocacy, the ARC and Head Start grant announcements, the biosimilars bill, the rural health fund announcements. The gap documented here is specific, not total: the three largest pending problems in the district’s health and safety record drew no comparable letter, statement or request.
  • The pharmacy losses are not his to fix in any direct sense; they are listed because they are what the district is facing, not as a charge.

Questions this raises

  1. Has he written to any federal agency about the $17.7 million in SHSP funds owed to the law enforcement agencies in his own counties, the way he wrote to HUD’s inspector general about Canalside?
  2. Has he asked CMS or the state to name which NY-23 hospitals will receive Rural Health Transformation funds, or asked the Fiscal Policy Institute’s at-risk finding to be addressed?
  3. His adviser says the project “affects the region.” By that standard, what region does the withheld counterterrorism money affect?
  4. On September 4 he wrote that downstate members “all of a sudden want local control” when they objected to his bill overriding a city ordinance. Does local control apply to Buffalo’s state-run project, or to his district’s heating rules, or to neither?
  5. Will his office release the HUD letter?

Sources

Note: This entry documents publicly available information. It does not allege wrongdoing by anyone, including the developer, the state agencies, or the Congressman, and it takes no position on the North Aud Block subsidies. Rep. Langworthy’s office has not been asked for comment as of this writing; any response, and the letter if released, will be published in full.

Last updated: September 9, 2026