The city’s efforts to house the homeless have resulted in millions of dollars in “handshake deals” with landlords who inflate prices while letting families live in squalor, according to a new audit from City Comptroller John Liu. City officials spent $153 million in fiscal year 2008 on such deals, the audit found. That’s the largest price tag since fiscal year 2004, when they allegedly spent $168 million on shady, emergency housing deals with landlords, according to the audit. “There’s no way to monitor [city agencies’] compliance with what they’ve agreed to and . . . payments are made based on cooked-up invoices,” Liu said. [NYDN]