Balance of State CoC FY 2024 Notice of Funding Opportunity
Information on the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the FY 2024 Continuum of Care Competition Application and Renewal or Replacement of Youth Homeless Demonstration Projects.
Public Notice: NH-500 Notification of CoC Approved Consolidated Application
Public Notice: NH-500 Notification of CoC Approved Consolidated Application
October 23rd, 2024
Please see the NH-500 CoC Approved Final Consolidated Application, which includes the FY 24 CoC Application, and the FY 24 Project Priority Listing, with all projects listed for the FY 2024 Continuum of Care Program Competition.
These documents were approved by the Balance of State Continuum of Care on October 23, 2024. Thank you for your hard work and partnership on this application!
October 21st, 2024
View the NH-500 Final Draft Continuum of Care Application (10/21/2024)
View the NH-500 Final Draft Project Priority Listing (10/21/2024)
September 30th, 2024
FY2024 NH-500 BoSCoC Program Project Ranking and Scores (09/30/2024)
FY2024 CoC Program project applicants, and subrecipients, and CoC members,
The NH BoSCoC Ranking Committee met to review, score and rank the submitted FY2023 CoC Program project applications. The NH Balance of State Continuum of Care (NH BoSCoC) FY2024 NH-500 Project Ranking List is attached to this e-mail and represents projects that will be submitted as part of NH BoSCoC FY2024 CoC Program Consolidated Application.
The attached document includes a list of accepted projects to be submitted to HUD and it includes the:
- applicant name,
- project name,
- project score,
- project rank, and
- project award amount
Congratulations to the chosen projects! The NH BoSCoC appreciates your participation in this process and looks forward to working with your agency on these projects. As in previous years, final award and final funding levels is dependent on actual Federal funds availability and awards made to the NH BoSCoC applicants.
APPEALS: If you wish to submit an appeal, please notify Kristi Schott in writing by October 2nd, 2024 by 4:00pm to Kristiane.Schott@dhhs.nh.gov.
Per the NH-500 BoSCoC Program Rank & Review Policy:
Grievance procedure:
If an applicant disagrees with their score, or placement on the ranking list, they may express their grievance in writing to the CoC Program Administrator within one business day of the list being published/distributed. The BoSCoC Executive Committee will hold an emergency conference call to discuss the grievance, and to make a final decision. The applicant will be notified of the Executive Committee’s decision in writing by the CoC Program Administrator within one business day of the meeting.
Additionally, the FY 2024 CoC Program Competition NOFO, page 120 states the following:
24 CFR 578.35 provides the appeal process options. Sections 578.35(b)(3), (b)(4), (c)(1), and (d)(2) authorize HUD to establish requirements for the form and manner of submissions for appeals by Solo Applicants, applicants with denied or decreased funding, and from competing CoCs. For HUD to consider an appeal under 24 CFR 578.35(b) or (c), the solo project applicant must follow the applicable application process set forth in this NOFO. This NOFO also provides guidance to CoCs and applicants regarding appeals of a jurisdiction’s refusal to sign the Consolidated Plan certification for a project under 24 CFR 578.35(c).
Additionally, HUD is clarifying the impact that Solo Applicant appeals will have on HUD signing grant agreements for funds awarded under this NOFO. If HUD receives one or more Solo Applicant appeals from a CoC, HUD will determine the amount of funding the Solo Applicant(s) have requested which may delay signing grant agreements for the awarded project(s) listed at the bottom of the CoC’s Priority Listing that has requested funding under this NOFO equal to double the amount requested by the Solo Applicant(s). Refer to the Solo Applicant appeal process in section VII.C of this NOFO for additional information about the Solo Application appeal process.
Finally, for the purposes of the appeals identified in this NOFO where 24 CFR 578.35 requires that all evidence be sent to the CoC and that the CoC respond to evidence, this means that correspondence to the CoC should be addressed to the CoC-designated Collaborative Applicant and all correspondence to HUD from the CoC should be addressed from the CoC’s designated Collaborative Applicant. If the CoC has authorized another entity other than the Collaborative Applicant to respond to the appeals identified in this NOFO on its behalf, it should notify HUD by sending an email to snapsappeals@hud.gov.
See NOFO, link below for additional details on specific steps.
FY 2024 – FY 2025 Continuum of Care Competition and the Renewal and Replacement of Youth Homeless Demonstration Program Grants NOFO publication
Additionally, the solo applicant, Collaborative Applicant, and HUD must take the following steps (See 24 CFR 578.35 for more information):
Per the Act, “A solo applicant may submit an application to the Secretary for a grant under subsection (a) and be awarded such grant on the same basis as such grants are awarded to other applicants based on the criteria described in section 427, but only if the Secretary determines that
the solo applicant has attempted to participate in the continuum of care process but was not permitted to participate in a reasonable manner. The Secretary may award such grants directly to such applicants in a manner determined to be appropriate by the Secretary.”
To apply as a solo applicant, the project applicant must submit a Solo Applicant Project Application in e-snaps by the application submission deadline of September 28, 2023 at 8:00 PM
EST. Additionally, the solo applicant, Collaborative Applicant, and HUD must take the following steps (See 24 CFR 578.35 for more information):
- Written Notice of Intent to Appeal. The solo applicant must submit a written notice of intent to appeal, with a copy to the CoC, with their funding application.
- No later than 30 days after the date that HUD announces the awards, the solo applicant shall submit in writing, with a copy to the Collaborative Applicant, all relevant evidence supporting its claim. The submission shall be emailed to snapsappeals@hud.gov.
- The CoC has 30 days from the date of its receipt of the solo applicant's evidence to respond to HUD in writing, with a copy to the solo applicant. The submission must be emailed to snapsappeals@hud.gov.
- HUD will notify the solo applicant and the CoC of its decision within 60 days of receipt of the CoC’s response.
- If HUD finds that the solo applicant was not permitted to participate in the Continuum of Care planning process in a reasonable manner, then HUD may award a grant to the solo applicant when funds next become available and may direct the Continuum of Care to take remedial steps to ensure reasonable participation in the future. HUD may also reduce the award to the Continuum's applicant(s).
Public Notice Request for the NH-500 Balance of State CoC Project Applications
Public Notice Request for the NH-500 Balance of State CoC Project Applications
Read the Public Notice Request for the NH-500 Balance of State Continuum of Care Project Applications (08/15/2024)
More information on the HUD NOFO for FY 2024 COC Program Competition can be found on their website at CoC Program Competition | HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Purpose
The annual Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity is designed to promote a community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; to provide for efforts to quickly rehouse individuals, families, persons fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and youth while minimizing trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness; to promote access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by those experiencing homelessness, and to optimize self-sufficiency among those experiencing homelessness.
The Continuum of Care (CoC) Program Competition occurs annually. Each Fiscal Year (FY) Competition process begins with Registration of CoCs by CoC designated Collaborative Applicants, followed by the CoC’s review of Grant Inventory Worksheets (GIW) and the release of the CoC Program NOFO. Documents related to each process are listed below and additional Competition related materials are posted once the process opens and as documents become available. The FY Competition ends when the final funding announcement is released by HUD.
Notice of Funding Opportunity Video
Balance of State Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity Meeting, August 14, 2024
Balance of State Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity Meeting, August 14, 2024
Balance of State Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity Meeting, August 14, 2024
Transcript of video:
everything in the same spot okay so we have started recording okay um Heidi can you also try
and mute people I got one but if you could um go
ahead and mute people as needed that would be helpful as well thank you holy
moly okay so welcome to our FY 2024
Continuum of Care competition meeting um this is meant to be a very high LEL
overview and now I'm echoing echoing okay is
op somebody is not muted and it's echoing
my all right thank you so whoever wasn't muted it was causing an echo and all I
could hear was myself um so this is going to be a very high level overview of this year's Continuum of Care com
competition it is not meant to give you every single detail that you will need to complete an
application what we will do after this meeting is over is I will send an email
with all of the attachments that you need that give you um all of the details
about the competition requirements our documents for submitting applications
our timelines our scoring tools so you know how projects will be scored um
there are a few other oh a couple of policies and procedures that are associated with our Continuum of Care competition all of that will go out
later today um and you will have the opportunity to reach out with any questions um the Bureau of housing
supports is the collaborative applicant for the balance of state so we are the ones responsible for actually submitting
this package to HUD um we can help answer technical questions about what's
allowed what's not allowed um how to interpret the the federal rules what we
can't do in the initial phase is help you with your specific project
application um if you go through the if you do
submit an application and you are selected for funding um at that time we
can help you finalize your applications but for the the next couple of weeks um
BHS is here strictly to give like black
and white concrete HUD answers and then um we will give you the tools that you
need to move forward with your application um one last thing before I
start sharing the PowerPoint that I created um HUD has not released our
official numbers yet as far as what we're allowed to apply for um every year
they typically post on their website and refreshing it now just to see if they happened to and they didn't um they
post um our COC bonus funding amount and our domestic violence bonus funding
amount they have not done that yet so as I go through this I will share the
approximate numbers they should be fairly close to
accurate but right now they are still approximate I went through the um notice
of funding and I followed the HUD math doing the percentage of the different numbers um so I I believe our numbers
are close once HUD releases the official numbers we will resend the information
with the final numbers the rest of the package of information will not change so um just wanted to give you that
information before we start and okay now I'm trying
to want to share my screen and I am
okay can folks see the PowerPoint as a PowerPoint or do you see the other
screen can somebody come off mute because I can't see people anymore in present mode it looks good okay and um Melissa if you can
clarify this is for the 2628 uh noo yes no it's for the fiscal year 24 noo
the year that we're in yeah so let me just clarify quickly
um this is most of you are currently operating in your FY 2023 funding cycle
from noo this funding is for FY 2024 we typically we always apply the
year before for your funding for next year so some of you may have projects
currently going that started July 1st of this year and end June 30th we are applying for the funding for
next July 1st 2024 okay I'm going to jump right in um I'm
going to do the overview of the eligible projects for um or the projects that are
eligible for funding in this year's competition I'm going to review our Rank
and review policy and our reallocation policy both of which need to be voted on today and then christe is going to cover
Hud's priorities which lead to our scoring tools and I think that's it um
my my pres presentation's on my screen to my left but my screen that has my camera just went completely black on me
so I'm hoping I don't get kicked off um christe call my cell phone if I disappear because I can't see people um
I have an electronic vote that I will post in the chat once I'm done sharing my
presentation um and that voting um survey has the votes for the two
policies I mentioned all of the
um the scoring tools and then we have one piece about match that we will cover
that is also a vote so without further Ado I'm going to go through this fairly
quickly um to leave some time at the end for questions um here we go if I can oh
my gosh I've been having technology trouble folks and I if I disappear it's
because I had a hissy fit with my my computer I'm sorry okay it's
working all right so a few small changes this year to project application types
and they're very very small um renewal projects are the same so our regular
Continuum of Care projects our domestic violence our existing domestic violence bonus projects and our existing yhdp
projects have a renewal process I'll talk a little bit about the yhdp um options at the bottom um new
continu of care bonus projects are the same new Continuum of Care reallocation
funded projects are the same however we don't have any cooc reallocation funding this year so any new project application
will be using bonus funds meliss we do have re alloc oh we only have for DV we
only have for DV um so we have new domestic violence bonus projects and
then new domestic violence reallocation projects this is a change from last year
um we had DV reallocation last year however the way HUD did it is that DV
reallocation amount actually went back into the regular cooc reallocation pot
and was used for we actually did use it for a DV project but it was available for any new project application this
year HUD has specified that DV reallocation must be used for a DV bonus
or a new DV project so um it cannot be used outside of that scope and that's
the only change and we do have a small amount of DV reallocation this year and then for the
yhdp projects uh they're still non-competitive all of the project
applications are non-competitive we do have to submit applications to pass a threshold um but we have the opportunity
to change some of the projects if we feel they are not working um and we can
either an existing subrecipient can do a replacement project application so they
can take one of their projects say I'm I don't want to do this one anymore I want to swap it for this other project um so
that's an option and then um we could also have the option of a yhdp
subrecipient saying I don't want to do this at all anymore giving up that
project and it would be available for another YH DP specific project at this time we do not have any
yhdp reallocation funding um available but there is the potential to do some
replacement projects this year um for Renewal projects there's
really nothing that's changing for you this year so um if you've been through this process before it should feel
familiar to you it should feel um pretty consistent with previous opt or previous
year applications you do have the same options you had last year if you want to
expand one of your existing renewal projects you can submit a new project application to expand that existing
project so instead of having two permanent Supportive Housing projects for example you could apply to expand
one and then still just have one project that can serve more people um you can do a transition Grant
which does require executive committee approval so um we have not heard of anyone wanting to do this but for
example if you had a transitional housing project that you wanted to turn
into rapid rehousing project you could do that through a transitional
application um I think we've done all of the consolidations that we can do maybe not um but we are allowed to consolidate
renewal projects so if you have two or more but no more than 10 um of the the
same type of project so um I'm not going to give examples because I'll mess it up but they have to be the same type of
project so all permanent Supportive Housing maybe all leasing I don't know
those can be Consolidated into one grant instead of having multiple grants I think we've done a lot of those over the
years but if anyone does have um consolidation options left that is
allowed this year um eligible populations are staying
the same um all renewal projects can either be
strictly chronically homeless or they can be dedicated plus um Christy I did
not add the dedicated plus criteria to this presentation so if at the end or if
you can send it to me I will send it out with all of our documentation um in a nutshell it's like
dedicated plus I think Christie almost chronically homeless it's pretty much the definition
of chronic homelessness with the few exceptions and I will send it out to
Melissa yeah we'll make sure you get that so we still want to make sure that we're serving the most vulnerable people
in our system they still have to come through coordinated entry however if we don't have somebody who's chronically
homeless it gives us a little bit of flexibility um and then we have the final option of joint transitional and
Rapid rehousing projects um I don't believe we have any of those outside of
the DV in yhdp space but it would be an option for
Renewal um I touched on this slightly the youth homelessness demonstration program and I apologize if the
formatting is funky at all I put this together this morning during other meetings so
um give me some Grace please for the formatting um renewals again all
non-competitive uh you do have the option in your renewal to add special activities if you didn't have them in
your original application um and you can have the opportunity to shift some of
your funding around to make your budget more user friendly um and then in replacement projects you are limited in
scope to the yhdp eligible projects but you can replace one with another um and
it can either be by the same subrecipient or we could change subrecipients if needed
um and then this is for COC specific new
project applications not our DV project applications that's the next slide I hope um eligible project types include
permanent support of housing uh rapid rehousing and in the actual documents
that I send out to all of you there is detailed definitions about what each of these mean um rapid rehousing and
permanent Supportive Housing are very very similar except that um permanent Supportive Housing requires a um a
diagnosed disability and it's not Tim limited rapid rehousing does not require
that disability and it is limited to two years yhp rapid reh housing is different
um there are other small nuances but they're very very similar um you could
submit a joint transitional rapid rehousing project and that gives you some crisis response
options with the rapid rehousing component as well um BHS as the hmis
lead for the balance of State Continuum of Care could up could apply for an hmis
expansion and then we could also do a coordinated entry expansion that has to
be done in coordination with BHS as the coordinated entry lead um however we do
have many subrecipients across the state that are helping operate our coordinated entry system um any coordinated entry
application would have to be um in consultation with us first to make sure
it's not duplicating services in an area that's already covered by a um coordinated entry Grant um and I'm just
going to pause to say if you have questions please put them in the chat for us um Christy if you can monitor the
chat for right now and either try to answer them in the chat or interrupt me if needed we can do
that and I'm going to keep going um and if you can mute yourself if you
are not presenting that would be very helpful thank you um okay so DV bonus
applications there are no changes to this part for this year so um you must
serve survivors of domestic violence Dating Violence sexual assault or stalking um human trafficking does fit
in this definition as well although it is not on this slide and then the three
um categories that are eligible are rapid rehousing joint transitional housing Rapid rehousing or coordinated
entry for the um existing coordinated entry lead so again that is through BHS
we do already have a domestic violence coordinated entry project in the balance
of state so the option for this particular component would be to expand that existing project not to add a new
one okay so this is our approximate funding for the year the only number
that is solid is the very bottom one the DV reallocation funds um but the bonus
funding this year is it was 12% of our
final prata need and there's a whole I had to follow the application to get to the actual calculation but it's based on
our annual renewal demand so our approximate funding available for new projects is $890,000
65 as soon as I have the real numbers I will send that out um but that's a
decent amount of funding for a good size permanent Supportive Housing or rapid rehousing project um Regular COC
reallocation again is zero and then our DV bonus funding um again this is an
approximate based on the calcul ations I did from the funding opportunity um
we're looking at approximately 540,000 in domestic violence bonus funding
um and then the reallocation funds those two numbers could be combined for one
large total for a DV new DV project uh but it must serve the DV population it
is not a requirement for the DV bonus that your agency be a victim service
provider although victim service providers are absolutely welcome to apply as well anyone can apply for this
funding you would just have to have survivors as your um focused
population couple of due dates um Christy I hope I got your update correct renewal project applications will be due
back to Christie by August 30th at 400 p.m. um Christy will be sending you the
document that we're able ble to export from esnaps which is the electronic system where we submit all of our
applications she will be sending you those documents to review um to make changes to and then in addition to the
review of those applications we will need any us and match letters um
submitted with those applications um by August 30th along with we have an equity
supplemental questionnaire that will also need to be submitted as well I will include all of the attachments once I
send out your renewal project applications to review um the yin CP
ones will be a little bit on a different timeline because we are working through
trying to finalize last year's agreements um but for the regular COC
renewals you will all have a your projects renewal app project application
by Friday so you should have two weeks to review and make
changes um and then for new project applications anyone who is planning to apply for a brand new project using the
COC bonus funds or those DV bonus and reallocation funds those project
applications are due back to Christie by September 30th at 12m um the documents that I send out to
all of you will have Christie's email address right next to these dates so that you will um have it all in one spot
um the review committee will be meeting the following I'm looking at my calendar the
Review Committee is meeting on September 18th we will notify all selected app um
projects by the following day September 19th and then you will have just over a
week to um work with chrisy to finalize those projects we understand these are
really tight timelines um Unfortunately they are out of our control so HUD gives
us several different deadlines for when certain pieces must be done we always build in a little bit
of a buffer for ourselves just in case something tragic happens and we need
extra time um so it it is fairly condensed um and we are we are making
ourselves available to all of these new project applicants to help you finalize those um documents once you've been
notified um oh we are I'm I told you I was cruising through and I'm I'm flying
along we have two policies that are associated with our Continuum of Care
competition every year for those of you that have been involved with this
process for quite some time um we are not making any proposed changes to our
Rank and review policy or our reallocation policy um because they
still meet the expectations of the noo and I don't know if people can see me keep pointing over here but my noo is in
a giant binder right next to me um this comes with me everywhere these days it was uh at baseball with me last night so
I could read it um so we compared the expectations and requirements from that
to our policies and they still meet all of the expectations and will get us
points in these categories so what we're proposing and there will be a vote that I will post um
shortly is to keep it the same so the new project review team will have at least three external
reviewers Christie and I facilitate the meeting but we do not vote so we're there just to answer technical questions
um we're there to capture the notes we're there to track the scores but the review team
members are the ones who actually provide the scores for all new project
applications um at least one reviewer will be a person with lived experience um who does not work for a
homeless Services Agency um for yhdp specific review teams at least one
reviewer will be a member of the youth success project um we don't have a yhdp
specific review team because those are non-competitive however ysp will be I if
Becca is on here I just forgot to email you um I'm reaching out to ysp to ask if anyone would like to be part of our
regular review team um HUD has identified some priorities in the noo for the review
team to include folks who are part of over represented populations and to
include um folks with lived experience I have two volunteers so far for our Rank
and review team and both of them have lived experience and one is a member of
um an over represented population um I need at least one more review member I am reaching out to
ysp um but we have three to five so if anyone else is working for an agency
that's not submitting a new project application and would like to be part of the review team please email me directly
um and that covers the second bullet there that reviewers may not work for an agency that is submitting an application
this is supposed to sa for new Project funding um renewal funding is all based on concrete scores um and concrete data
so it's not a subjective review it's a very objective review um so I will fix
this before I send it out but if you're submitting a new project application you cannot be on the review team
um look I swapped it if a potential reviewer's agency it's okay I'll fix it before I send it out um and then Rank
and review policy continued um histor tally we have voted
to rank the projects in this order so typically we do renewals in rank order
so it's all based on the scores that I mentioned and then we include our hmis
and coordinated entry renewal projects fully funded in tier one um because
those two things are required by Hud to operate a Continuum of Care and if we put them in tier two and they were cut
our system wouldn't be able to function so historically the COC has um agreed to
that and we've built it into the policy so it is part of this policy which you will be voting on today um and then all
of our new projects go underneath the renewal projects and the intention there
or the the sort of justification for that is if those projects do not get
funded they're not currently housing people and we won't be creating homelessness for folks being served if a
project doesn't get funded um and then DV bonus projects go at the bottom um
not because we don't prioritize them but because HUD does the DV bonus project sort of in a separate space that we call
hypothetical tier three um they if it was part of our other ranking they
remove it and then move things up anyway so we just put them all at the bottom because they're reviewed separately on
their own with their own pot of funding um and then the Continuum of Care planning
Grant is um and yhdp projects are
included in the list but at the bottom because they are non-competitively renewed and are not required to be
ranked in um in the part that HUD actually might cut projects from so uh
when you see all of our stuff come out it will have those things at the bottom so that's your rank and review policy
the highlights of it um and as I said there will be a vote coming soon and
then our final policy is the reallocation policy uh HUD is increasing
their focus on reallocating projects that are underperforming and they want to see
that the Continuum of Care has a process that is standard across the board for
evaluating the performance of all of our projects um every year we do um Christy
I get the words wrong every every time we do a basically a COC monitoring of the projects using all of the metrics
that HUD has identified throughout the noo and throughout the scoring
requirements um to assess where all of
our projects fit um the COC has voted over the years to use the median score as just our
threshold to review um so we monitor all of those projects we put the scores
across and we look to see who is below the threshold being below the threshold does not automatically mean you've been
reallocated it means we issue a corrective action plan work with you
on um understanding why a certain metric might be below and um if your plan meets
the need or you know meets um sort of the expectations the executive committee will review that and approve it to
continue um so we do have two two pieces of this process
um voluntary is completely separate from what I just described projects are 100%
allowed to say to us you know what we have decided this doesn't work for us anymore or our agency is changing Focus
we wish to give up this grant next year 100% allowed um you just have to make
sure you work with christe on a plan because we do have to create a transition plan for the people being
served um and then the involuntary reallocation is the process I just talked about so we review certain
metrics um and if a project
consistently is underperforming and is not making the improvements that have been that they've
promised to make within their corrective action plan or that are needed to make then the executive committee might vote
to involuntarily reallocate a project so to take the funding away from next year
to make available for a new project um HUD requires that we report out uh not
the exact dollar amount but whether or not we've reallocated 20% over the past five years every year we have actually
had quite a bit of reallocation funding and have exceeded that this year we're like $1,000 over that threshold so we've
still reallocated 20% over the last five years but only just barely um so in the
next you know in the coming years we may be having harder conversations although
we do have the policy in place to meet part of Hud's expectations so there will be a vote on um the survey length that I
post in just a minute for this policy as well and that is the end of my part I'm
going to pause for just a moment I don't know if what is happening here can am I
not sharing my screen anymore because my screen just went black again I can't see people so if somebody
could correct you are not sharing anymore thank you I need a new computer and Chrissy keeps telling me to put in
my ticket for it and I just haven't so thank you for letting me know um I'm going to pause for questions on this
section and then I will turn it over to Christy to review the HUD priorities and the other documents that we will be
voting on today any
questions that haven't been addressed in the
chat I do have a quick question what's the um uh what's the cycle here is it an
annual cycle oh great question subject to whatever HUD makes
available um so historically it has been a two-year cycle this year is the first time HUD
has made it I mean it's been a one-year cycle this year is the first time HUD is making it a two-year cycle um each award
so the the full Continuum of Care application with all of our narratives and other requirements um that will
happen every other year um the project application or the Project funding will
be based on the Continuum of Care score for this year so if a project is funded
this year they are conditionally funded for next year as well and then a renewal project application would have to be
submitted in two years um there is I would say almost certainly a
guarantee just from my experience with HUD that next year we will likely have to do some sort of like interim update
just confirming that our budgets are still accurate that we're still serving the right populations but it won't be a
full application next year so so it it will be in every two years
cycle anyone else and this is absolutely not your last chance to ask a question
you will have all my contact info as well um so you can hold on to them email me if
you think of them um I'm going to turn it over to Christie just in the interest of
time good morning everyone I am going to briefly run through
the FY 2024 Continuum of Care um program changes strategic goals
and HUD priorities Melissa has talked about a couple of these but the first one is for all of you who are ycp
subrecipient agencies again this year you are able to select your previously approved yhp
activities in the application and you can also request new special activities
um I know that Heidi has been out there meeting all of your agencies about last year's
applications um we are hoping to get all that information in and do a huge update
for those projects so that this year runs
smoothly again this year HUD has included costs for the violence against
women act these costs are part of Supportive Services budget line item and
they help with the facilitation and coordination with the compliance with the emergency transfer plan um we will
be sending this document out afterwards but it can provide assistance for a participant who needs an emergency
transfer from their unit which includes travel costs moving cost security
deposits all sorts of things so that we can ensure the safety of
survivors um this the vawa cost line item also includes ensuring mono
monitoring and evaluating compliance with the violence against women act um
and any staff time associated with that so that is also an option for all of your renewal and new projects this year
is to apply for this funding the other cost that was
available last year and is again available this year is rural costs um
this is really to address barriers for families who are transitioning out of rural areas within our balance of State
Continuum of Care which is most of our geography um it can help pay for
short-term emergency lodging repairs to units and also staff
training again H I can't talk this morning HUD continues to State um per
the violence against women act in 2022 um the qualifying criteria for
homelessness um for those who are fleeing or fleeing domestic violence includes experiencing trauma or lack of
safety as well um and they also continue to maintain that youth who are in an
unsafe situation would qualify as homeless under the HUD
definition um I'm going to briefly go through HUD strategic plan it is laid
out in the noo and you can also find it on the Hut exchange um they expanded on the
Strategic goals from last year and made some specific bullets um and of course
I'm not sharing my screen so that's not helpful hold
on okay there it is um HUD expanded each one of the
Strategic goals they were looking at to concl include specific bullet points um
so for strategic goal one it's supporting underserved communities um and you can see they're
looking at advancing housing Justice reducing homelessness and investing in the success of
communities um strategic goal number two they expanded on um to include
increasing our supply of Housing and improving rental assistance the third goal is the same as
last year with those three extra bullets it's promoting home ownership
um strategic go number four is advancing sustainable communities um they are really looking at um investing in
climate resiliency and environmental justice so really looking
at how are we making an impact as a Continuum of Care on exposures to health risks renovating Apartments exposure to
lead things along those lines or making improvements to those units that are not
meant for human habitation that people are living in um I also included and Melissa will
send this out to all of you is Hud's homeless and policy priorities they are all the same as last
year except for they added um number nine which is
building an effective Workforce for the last couple years HUD has always placed an emphasis on Conn ing people to
workplace opportunities and employment and programs they have included it in
their policy priorities this year um but they also included not just connecting
participants to Workforce assistance but also looking at our grants and
acknowledging that the staff who are serving these grants we frequently have
a huge turnover um within the the COC projects
because your Supportive Services budgets have not gone up in over 10 years they are Level funded you get the same amount
of money and there has been no cost of living increase for the Supportive Services budget line item so my good
news of the day is that HUD is making a cost of living adjustment to the
Supportive Services budget line item I don't know the formula or the math
they're going to use um but they are going to be increasing your Supportive Services budgets based on cost of living
adjustments so that's exciting and we'll find out once we actually get the awards next year what that cost of living
is um and again we'll share this out
um did Christie disappear I think she did oh
yeah I'm back okay I was like something just went wrong any of you who have been on teams with me I often hit the leave
button instead of the stop share button they do it all the time you think I would learn Christy one
thing I want to make sure we address and um I apologize to everyone for us not being completely prepared for this um
noo sort of snuck up on us even though we been waiting anxiously for it and there was a surprise noo on top of that
um so Chrissy we need to make sure we explain the match vote why we require
30% do you have that built into your talking points okay yes so before folks
start voting I want to make sure we explain why we have always required 30%
um and it's really to reduce the administrative burden on all of you so I'll let Christy address that but I
wanted to make sure people were aware before they were voting I'm going it's okay I'll just
address it now it's easier um so historically in the past the balance of state has voted to ask um project
applicants and subian agencies to submit 30% match at project application
time um of your whatever funding your requesting HUD only requires up to
25% the reason that we are asking you to do this is twofold once we typically receive the
Hut Awards most projects see an increase in their rental assistance budget line
item their leasing budget line item or their operations budget line item due to
any increases in Fair market rent so the last couple years fair market rent has
gone up you award amount has gone up so therefore we don't have to redo
our match letters because we already set it 5% higher than what HUD is
requiring secondly this year HUD is asking us when looking at any of our
project applications that we did last year we need to have memorandums of
understandings completed for this year's noo and I know how hard it is for all of
you to get those signed by your Community Partners so if we only have to do it once with the 30% hopefully we
won't have to go back and ask you all to redo your memorandums of understandings
because the amount of funding was not high enough the other reason we do this is
you only held to 25% match of whatever you expended at the end of your Grant
term so if you expended $100,000 at the end of your Grant term your match is
$25,000 um we are not holding you to that 30% we ask you to commit to that
30% and meet the 25% requirement by Hud and part of the reason we do this is
because HUD will actually withhold the funding if um we get to Grant agreement
time and we don't have that full 25% commitment in match letters um and then
it it does become a scramble of um having to read you all of those letters
make sure you've increased the dollar amount reattaching it and it can delay
Awards by several weeks because nothing is ever quick with HUD um and so this
just allows us to avoid that part so once projects are funded and the grant agreements come out you can start
serving people right away instead of having to go back and redo the whole match process again
so I just want to make sure people understood that we're not asking you to over um like overmatch we're just asking
you to plan ahead to account for Hud's um
unpredictability anyone have any questions about that I know it's a little convoluted
but most of you had done this before with
me all right moving on so that we can look at the next things I'm going to show you the three scoring tools for
this year um and tell you what has changed I'm going to start with the
scoring tool for any new Supportive Services only coordinate entry
projects the tool is the same as last year we have our seven threshold requirements which are right here at the
top there no could you make that larger perhaps perhaps sure let me try that'd
be great thanks we will send these out as well how's
that much better thanks okay um so we have the first seven threshold questions
if there is a no to any of them the project does not me threshold and therefore it is not scored by the rank
and Review Committee um questions 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 1718 did not change um these are all the
same questions that were on the scoring tool as of last year in regards to our Equity factors
and you'll hear me say this about all of our scoring tools last year they were two questions added to our Equity
supplemental question year which are questions 21 oh don't do that questions
21 and question question 26 they were on the questionnaire last
year but agencies were not scored on them we had given everyone kind of a heads up this year there are you can
receive up to one point for each one of these questions that was added last
year and that was the only big changes to the cantry scoring tool
me share the next one and I'll make it bigger this is the
new project application scoring tool again those first seven questions are
the threshold questions um there were no changes to
any of the questions of 8 through 17 again we have question 20 was added
which is the same question that was added to the Cory entry tool about ensuring your board of directors
has representation from people with Liv experience and then that other question where has your agency identified
programmatic changes needed to make participant outcomes more Equitable and developed a plan to make those
changes so those two questions again were on the tool last on the question year last year they're being scored this
year and then the same goes
for the renewal project scoring tool again nothing changed on it we added
those two questions and they're being scored per us letting you know last
year and again once Melissa shares the noo calendar um all of the the renewal projects will be able to see their
scores um and there is a period of time for appeals so we will get that
information out to you per the calendar dates and I don't have anything
else okay so I know that was a lot of information really fast um I have put
the link for voting on those two policies that I covered the match
question and then those renewal tool or the scoring tools that Christy shared I
put that link in the chat um so with a reminder our governance Charter limits
it to one vote per agency so if you are your agency's voting member um please
feel free to go ahead and submit your vote at this time um when we if
everything passes I can send out final documents today um if they don't pass we
will have to uh address some of the changes
um uh Ruth you put a question why DP not scored do you mean
yhdp and if if that is what you're referencing um yhdp is not
scored um HUD has deemed them to be non-competitive so as long as the
project applications meet the threshold that HUD has established for eligible activities they will be funded
makes it a little bit easier for those ones and the only other thing I don't think we brought up was um Melissa kind
of brought it up but the new project applications will go out with today's email as well um we have a different
project new project application for continue of care one for support of
services coordinat projects and we have one for domestic violence projects so
there are three separate applications and we will post them and most of this material on our lovely
website and that website will be included in the email that we send out um I see that some of you have also
responded to the other survey I posted um I shared a link to a team survey that
collects um contact information and that is the list that I use to send all of my
Continuum of Care information out um so if you are participating in this call and you have not signed up to be part of
that email list please do so so that you can get all of this information that I'm U referencing today um and then people
are certainly welcome to share that email with others um I just want to make
sure if you're on this call and you're interested in this information that you are on my list so that I don't miss
anyone um but again it will be on our website I can actually I'll drop that in the chat as well just so people have it
um and we are scheduled for 10 more minutes um we can certainly give you your time
back if there aren't any questions I'm just waiting for the website to load so
I can post it okay the only thing I will say to all
of your renewal or new project applications if you have questions about match letters
orus or if you want me to review them before finalizing and having them signed
I am happy to so that we get them right the first time and you don't have to go back for
signatures sorry I muted myself and then started talking any final
questions hearing none and seeing none in the chat um I'm going to just thank
you all for coming and um I will get that information out today so that you have it and you can start thinking about
your project applications and we look forward to hearing from you all thank you bye everyone
FY2024 NOFO Bidder’s Conference
FY2024 NOFO Bidder's Conference Training, March 22, 2024
FY2024 NOFO Bidder's Conference Training, March 22, 2024
FY2024 NOFO Bidder's Conference Training, March 22, 2024
Transcript of video:
today we are going to go through the annual new project process for the
notice of funding opportunity that HUD presents to the continu of Care on a
yearly basis um I will let you know that HUD is moving to a two-year process we
don't quite know what that looks like yet um but we will share information as
we receive it I'm gonna start going through the
presentation so today we have about 90 minutes to talk about the annual Continuum of Care Program and the new
competition project process for the New Hampshire balance of State continuing of care if
you have any questions throughout our time together you can use the chat feature um and I and my wonderful staff
will keep an eye on that chat
So today we're going to be talking about new project applications for the Continuum of Care notice of funding
opportunity um but these projects work in a larger context of planning and
system crisis response so I'm going to do a quick overview of some guiding
principles you should keep in mind as you think about putting a project application
together sorry there are three continuums of care
in New Hampshire we have the balance estate Continuum of Care the Manchester Continuum of Care and the greater Nash
Continuum of Care each one of these eight continuums has been formed to help
end and prevent homelessness in their geographical areas in order to do that it's really
helpful for us to have some guiding values that help our system succeed and are
strongly encouraged by Hud as core values so we really look at having a
housing Focus system coc's are all encouraged to adopt
a housing first approach which means that people can Access housing without
any prerequisites such as sobriety or income we look at addressing people's
needs once someone has been stabilized in housing rather than prior to being
housed people are most effectively engaged in Services when the services are voluntary and not
mandatory and services are continually offered and available when people are
ready one of the other guiding values of the Continuum of Care and of Huds is
centering Equity we really look at how black indigenous and people of color are
disproportionately rep presented in the population of those who experience
homelessness all of the continues of care must understand who is becoming
homeless and how they are being served by the system including looking at
analyzing exits to different destinations their length of time homeless and returns to homelessness by
race and ethnicity all of the continum of care should be doing system planning to
address dis arities by adjusting policies and
procedures in order to do this effectively our Continuum of Care must include representatives of lived
experience in our system planning and program
design the next guiding value is access access really refers to how communities
are prioritizing the most vulnerable for the available resources and how continuent
of care are working to ensure that their coordinated entry process results in Equitable access to
housing resources we're really looking at how our continu of care can help fund help
coordinate sorry how our COC can help to coordinate Community funding and
services to assist people experiencing homelessness and really looking at
developing targeted Partnerships with providers of housing employment
Health Care public benefits and other services we also have to look at the
data to improve our entire systems performance HUD expects our Continuum of
Care to understand who is experiencing homelessness in our community and how
our homeless system is meeting their needs and how we're improving our system
to use data and performance Improvement strategies really looking at
establishing project level performance targets doing community performance
metrics and conducting annual gaps analysis to guide investments into our
system next we're going to talk about the continue of Care Management and how that happens um this is the way that
processes and values are implemented through a Continuum of Care structure
and covers a specific geographical area so within the balance of State Continuum
of Care we have our Continuum of Care executive committee or board we also
have our collaborative applicant and we have our hmis lead
agency I think most of you know who are on this call today that the New Hampshire B bance estate Continuum of
Care covers 226 towns and cities um and we
Manchester covers just the city of Manchester NASA covers NASA and their surrounding towns each one of these
continuums of care have their own groups and
processes so for our balance of state continu of care we have our COC executive board
um this membership is set by our members within the Continuum of Care and they
help Guide local priorities and our decision makers for task assigned to them by the general
membership the second part of the management of the continu of care is the
collaborative applicant this is the agency that is designated by the
continuing of care to carry out all of the ACT activities of the Continuum of Care this
happens through our governance Charter and our agreement it also includes the
management of the annual notice of funding Opportunity Grant and the
recipient of the continu of care planning Grant so the Bureau of homeless Services
is the collaborative applicant and the hmis lead we specifically contract and
throughout the entire State um with IC to be the hmis
administrator BHS as the lead agency in all three of the continuums is the entity designated by the COC to operate
the homeless management information system hmis and then
ICA oversees the day-to-day operations of hmis that all continu of care
projects must use unless they are a victim service
provider next we're going to talk about the key functions and responsibilities of continuums of
care each Continuum of Care has some specific functions and
responsibilities so when we're looking at a new project application the priorities are taken into
account I'm not going to read all these to you but the one thing that drives new
pro project application priorities is the implementation of a response
system our Continuum of Care Works to coordinate the implementation of a housing and service system which
responds to the need of all people experiencing homelessness so we really look at how is
our entire system responding to the needs of those experiencing homelessness
whether it's through emergency Mercy shelters domestic violence shelters permanent housing including Tim limited
rental subsidies um tenant or project or sponsor based permanent housing
subsidies as well we also look at how our system is responding in regards to
homeless prevention and
diversion um next we're really going to dig into the Continuum of Care competition basics and we're going to
walk through each one of these five steps just gonna pause for a second to
see if there's any questions don't see any okay Christy
poke me if there
are um so we're going to review the competition Basics this is an
overview of values roles and responsibilities now we're going to look at how the competition actually happens
and we're going to focus on the project application process so step one step one starts with
setting funding priorities HUD does this every single year when they release the notice of
funding opportunity application generally speaking HUD has
similar priorities each year but they do tend to modify and clarify them when
they open the competition each year our COC membership reviews HUD
priorities and determines what we will need locally in order to match the type of
projects to prioritize for each Year's fundings sometimes there are points for
certain types of projects or subpopulations like servicing people experiencing chronic homelessness
there's also in the past and has been continuing for a couple of years we have
a specific funding source for projects to help people who are fleeing or
attempting to flee domestic violence and who are also at risk of or experiencing
homelessness step two the actual competition
opens in past years HUD has attempted to
set a schedule of when the competition will happen um typically as we've seen
in the last couple of years they issue it around the week of
Fourth of July and typically we have to submit everything to them for the
competition by the end of
September our entire membership is allowed to review the noo and then we
publish requests for projects along with scoring tools and
policies step three is Project applications new and renewals so the
Bureau of homeless Services is the collaborative applicant and also the recipient of the funding for all of the
Continuum of Care projects within the balance of State um we work in contract with local
agencies to design and sub MIT new projects for reviewing and
scoring we look for new projects to be based on the funds that are available so
if there is a funding available for specific domestic violence projects we
look for project applications that are designed to meet that need the Bureau of
homeless Services puts together timelines for submission of those new
project applications the membership reviews the scoring tools that are used by the
ranking and scoring team um and we publish those as
well um anyone who is part of the project review and ranking group does
not have any financial interest in any of the projects um because we want to
ensure there's no conflict of interest when these projects are being ranked and scored to be put forth to HUD to be
funded we trying to make this the a very transparent process for all
of you again we issue that we sent out the calendar so you will see flurries of
emails from me and Melissa about deadlines and due dates so that we make
sure that if anyone's interested in applying for a new project application they know when everything is what they
need to fill out what the parameters are and what the scoring tool is being
used step four is the community application this is completed by the
Bureau of homeless Services um this is a very large project application that
HUD asks us for responses to numerous different questions we compile all of
that information with help from a to pull the data that we need from hmis
because they look at our numbers um including our pin pit count numbers um
our system performance measures all of those things we also have to respond to
numerous questions with narratives and we reach out to the entire Continuum of Care membership to get responses to
those questions so that we ensure that we are putting forth to HUD the actual
information of what we are doing within our continu of care to prevent and end
homelessness the second part of the community application is the priority project
listing this listing is done once we Rank and score all of the renewal and
new project applications um HUD expects us to score
every single project application except for a few and we have to publish that
information out to the communities to show this is how they
ranked and scored this is our scoring tool and here's what we are putting
forth to HUD for funding for the next year and then finally we put all of this
information into a system called esnaps which is step five um Melissa and I and
a couple other of the bureau staff put all this information into the system um
and we submit it to Hut and then we wait to hear back from
them so next we're going to talk about project
development for those of you who are interested in submitting new project applications for this
year so if you're thinking about submitting a new project application it's really essential that you
familiarize yourself with the requirements and understand the responsibility and expectations that
come with accepted COC project funds um first and foremost all of these
projects are governed by a federal rule which is 24 CFR part
578 um it is hyperlink in the slide so I will send that out to all
you but if you're thinking about submitting a new project application really go through that interm rule and
look at the requirements of a new project what is eligible what can be funded
through these projects in addition to the federal
requirement there's always additional restrictions and requirements that are
issued by Hud and the annual notice of fun opportunity typically the noo Narrows
the focus of funding on specific housing types and
subpopulations all projects have three minimum requirements they must use hmis
our homeless management information system chosen by the continue of care or
if they are a victim service provider they must purchase and use a database that is fully compliant with Hud's hmis
standards secondly all new project applications must use the Continuum of car's coordinated entry system for all
referrals for their project projects cannot have their own independent process for filling beds
they have to take referrals through the coordinate entry system and then lastly and probably the
most important the project must document that they are serving eligible
populations that matches up with the eligibility requirements in the Continuum of Care rule in their project
application and the Continuum of Care
prioritization so not going to go over this in detail but this is an excerpt
from the federal rule that governs all continum of care projects and shows kind
of a brief overview of allow expenses under the Continuum of Care processes
this is really just for your reference to see where to find out some of the basics about the
requirements we want you all to remember that noo and our local process May narrow down the project
Focus the rule that we're looking at 24 CFR May is all
the possibilities that can happen for our project but the project application is really what you're
promising to do to your Continuum of Care and it may be narrowed down
depending on the priorities that HUD sets every single year through the
noo next we're going to talk about eligible populations for any new Continuum of Care
Project um hun has four definitions of
homelessness we have category one which is literally homeless this is an individual youth or family who lacks a
fixed regular and adequate nighttime residence category two is eminent risk
of homelessness it's an individual or family who lose their primary nighttime
residents within 14 days
currently the balance of State New Hampshire does not have approval for category 2 um we
serve only category 1 and four um we really look at category 1
which is literally homeless so those people living in an emergency shelter or
a hotel paid for with emergency funds or who are living unsheltered or category 4
for those who are fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence including those who are fleeing human
trafficking um I know that we are one of the rural States where we have people sleeping doubled up such as living in
someone's apartment sleeping on a couch or a spare room unfortunately this is
not one of the categories that are eligible for the Continuum of Care
projects at this time because they would fall under category 2 we have so many people currently
living in literal homelessness that category 2 is not currently prioritized
so what can the Continuum of Care fund we can fund permanent support of housing
rapid rehousing transitional housing SL rpid rehousing projects Supportive Services
only coordinated entry projects um hmis projects which all help people who are
experiencing chronic homelessness people who are living in shelters or unsheltered situations or
people who are fleeing domestic violence situations um in 2023 had allowed all
the project types in the green box on your screen we're really going to focus on
the first three which serve people experiencing homelessness um and really looking at
what these projects can do so permanent Supportive Housing
focuses on people who are literally experiencing chronic homelessness um one member of the
household has to have a disability permanent Supportive Housing provides assistance for people without a
limited time frame and also provide Supportive Services for people to
maintain their permanent housing option for an unlimited period of
time rapid rehousing which we call rrh focuses on people experiencing literal
homelessness but can also serve people who qualify Under The Chronic homelessness
definition and people who may have a disability rapid rehousing provides
tenant based rental assistance for up to 24 months and can provide Case Management
Services for six months after that we also have the transitional
housing rap rehousing project which we call th RR this is a
relatively new project design that has shown up in the last couple years from HUD that allows for flexibility to serve
people in transitional housing or in Rapid rehousing for a combined 24mth
cap this project type is really designed to be more fluid and flexible so that if
someone is in Rapid rehousing and they really need a transitional housing model that they can flow back into
transitional housing and then when they're ready to be in Rapid rehousing they can move on to that project
again so just as important what does The continu CARE program not fund the
Continuum Care Program does not fund Emergency Shelters within the balance estate
Continuum of Care it does not fund transitional housing only
it does not provide assistance for people who are currently housed or
including those people who are currently doubled up or couch surfing it does not
fund any new Street Outreach projects
either next we're going to look at eligible cost by project
type for the regular competition funding these are the eligible types of projects
and eligible cost by project type I'm not gonna go over this in full
detail um as that's a full training in itself um but this really provides a
visual about the cost each project type could have and what is allowed through a
regulatory lens so your job as a potential new
project applicant is understand what the HUD rules are and propose a compliant
project application to the Continuum of Care for
consideration if any of you need any help understanding what is allowable we can take some of those questions today
and you can always follow up with me for assistance as you think about any of your new projects that you might be
interested in implementing within our Continuum of Care
so one of the big things when you're submitting a new project application is really looking at your project
budget um and really understanding what your budget can and cannot allow so for
permanent support of housing projects they are not allowed to have
rental assistance and operating costs in one project so you either have to pick we're
going to help with rental assistance we're going to help with operating funds to operate a building where people are
going to live or we're going to look at leasing Apartments again permanent support of
housing is not Tim limited rapid rehousing projects again
it's up to 24 months of tenant-based rental assistance and again that six
months of case management can be afforded to participants after the 24
months of rental assistance they also do get Supportive Services throughout that first initial 24
months and then finally the transitional housing rapid rehousing projects also
can offer up to 24 months of rental assistance through either train
transitional housing or rapt housing or a combination of both um and this project type can also
have operation funds so you might have a building where you're offering transitional
housing and then the rapid rehousing is out in the community where you get have tenant based rental
assistance next we're going to talk a little bit about project roles within the project design and
application in your project design when you're submitting an application you'll need to determine what tasks you will
keep at your agency and when you will bring in other partners it's very important not to
overpromise services in your project application if you cannot provide
them HUD will hold both the Bureau of homeless services and your agency
responsible for the project design and what is put in the project application even if it's not their
requirement the project application really needs to reflect the reality of what you will Implement for this project
project so first we're going to look at the first role which is the recipient
agency within the balance estate continue of care the Bureau of homelesses homeless Services is the
recipient who has direct contact with HUD so the Bureau of homeless Services
submits any new project application for the subrecipient agency and all of them
work with us and contract with us to implement these new
projects secondly we have the SE seing agency which is the agency that has
contracted with the Bureau of homeless services to implement all or part of the pro
project partner really think of this category as agencies that are working
directly on this project with you where you may have formal contracts or will
have formal contracts if awarded the project specifically for this project
and a specific service need for people in the housing so you may be partnering
with an agency such as head start to provide child care for
the households within this project or you may have a partnership agreement
with your local Community Mental Health Center um where they're going to provide services to participants in this
project and then finally we have a non-partner project role most projects
have nonp partner assistance in providing Supportive Services um this is primarily who you're
referring your the people you're working with out to so it might be we made a
referral to our local Mental Health Center substance abuse disorder
provider um Community Action For assistance with
food um whoever you're referring those families to to get the assistance they
need to maintain housing the next two slides are going to be two examples of how the service grid
might look for a permanent support of a rapid rehousing
project so briefly this is a chart that is in the new project application that
every single agency has to fill out um these are all of the eligible Supportive
Services for permanent Supportive Housing projects and Rapid rehousing
projects as you design your project you need to consider three things so if we look at column
one what services does your target population need so really looking at if
we're designing a project to serve families do they need need assistance with child care or Educational
Services column two is who will be the primary provider of that
service so as you can see in column two where it says provider the suban agency
is going to provide case management for these households in order to maintain their
permanent housing they're working with a non-partner educa for Educational Service
um they're also working with nonp partner Agency for mental health and outpatient Health Services um and then
column three really looks at the frequency of how often these services are going to be provided to the
households that are being served by this
project so this is another sample project role but this one is for rapid rehousing and really looking
at what is being provided for this rapid rehousing project design um with rapid
rehousing case management has to be provided on a monthly basis so you can
see right here oh of course I messed it
under the case management line the sub recipient is providing case management monthly which is a requirement of Rapid
rehousing projects
so who's eligible to apply um anyone who is a nonprofit organization state or
local government or public housing authority is eligible to apply for a new
continu of Care Project
um all right so just quickly going to do a pop
quiz and see so the first question is you put the answers in the chat how long can someone
stay in permanent Supportive Housing
so you are all correct they can see permanent support of housing as long as they
need the second question is what type of new project does the Continuum of Care
Program funding support does it support permanent
Supportive Housing rapid rehousing transitional housing transitional rapid
rehousing housing or emergency shelter
you are all correct I love the not yes Continuum of Care cannot support
emergency shelter we have our lovely sgia funds to support emergency sh
shelter within the state of New Hampshire um but it can support all of the other project
types then one war which project can serve people who
are experiencing home homelessness who are at imminent risk or
doubled up
so Mandy Rob and Karen you win um continu care
funding cannot support people who are at risk of or are eminently going to be
experiencing homelessness we have other funding streams that can help support those specific
populations um the Continuum of Care funding is really focused on serving
those who are the most vulnerable and getting them into those permanent housing
opportunities pass so a couple of things we're going to talk about things to know before you apply for new
project um the biggest one is really
match and I know this is like the evil word that I talk about with all my renewal projects with h expects us to
match all of our program budgets their expectation is that we match
25% the balance of State Continuum of Care expects that you commit to 30% at
the beginning um there is a reason for this um because what we have seen over the
last couple of years is that once a project is awarded that budgets often
increase due to the Hut Awards so we don't have to redo our match letters so you initially will commit for 30% of the
budget at the end of the day though you only have to submit 25% of whatever was
expended on the project I know that's slightly
confusing but really we just looking for that 30% commitment up front and then at
the end of the day it's that 25% of whatever was expended on the grant eligible matching funds costs are
things that HUD would pay for if they were supported through the project we look for match to be
documented at the time of application and then potentially again once the project is
awarded um all of our projects have annual reporting and monitoring
requirements new agencies who've never implemented a COC Project funding are welcome to apply and please carefully
review your agency systems to make sure you have capacity to fulfill the federal
obligations um the Bureau of homeless Services works with each of the agencies
as the recipient agency to meet all of the reporting deadlines we have to submit an annual
report to HUD which we work with all of you on every single
year um we really want your agencies to think about things like how strong are your internal Financial systems in order
to be able to track staff time and produce detailed invoices um and really looking at what
training and support will you need to implement this
project and what is the capacity of your agency to stand up a new
project so what can you do now before noo because it's only May probably have
till July um the good news is that the competition isn't technically open yet
so you have some time to read up on Continuum of Care Program funds and
determine if you want to propose a new project some of the things I would
recommend is reviewing the new project
requests um and looking at last year's application form also talking with your local
Partners to determine what type of project is most needed in your area do
you really need are we looking for Rapid rehousing because people are able to connect with
other resources and be self- sustaining after 2 years are we really looking at a population
that is Aging in place and has significant medical needs so they really need a permanent Supportive Housing
project in this area so really talking to your local Partners to see what is
the need in your area um you can also reach out to a peer
who already has a Continuum of Care Program funds about tips and tricks and
how to get prepared for applying for new project um and then of course the big
one is thinking about where you could secure matching funds or services for
your new
project so next we're going to talk about scoring which I touched briefly on
earlier um again as I had said HUD requires the Continuum of Care to rank
and score every single new project application and every single renewal
project application and we have to post that information publicly um all of the projects are
reviewed and ranked by a project scoring committee we in the balance of State
typically rank all of the renewal projects above new
projects and the reason for this is because we want to ensure that people
who are in current housing projects are able to stay in those housing projects we don't want to cause homelessness by
not funding a renewal project um who is performing well and is helping people
stay in their permanent housing options I can tell you that last year in
our competition we were awarded all six of the new project applications that we
applied for um so we are very very excited about that
again HUD provides guidance every year about how much funding is available for
our Continuum of Care to apply for how much funding is and I say this in air
quotes guaranteed um I've talked about the ranking and scoring process HUD actually
makes us break that up into two tiers when we submit the information to
them tier one is is usually a percentage of our annual renewal demand and
typically those are considered kind of automatically guaranteed we're going to get that funding so most of our
renewal projects are in that top tier tier two is typically our new projects
that we're looking for new funding for um and again as I said last year we
got all of our projects funded so it's really exciting it's never happened before um we also issue information
about how much funding is available in which categories again as I said there's
regular Continuum of Care projects and there's also we've had in the past
couple of years a specific pot of funding for domestic violence
projects um and we use different tools to review
all of the new and pro new and renewal project applications um we have a scoring tool
for for all new project applications we have a separate one for Renewal project
applications we also review per performance data for all of the renewal
projects we look at hmis data and the application content that is included
with all of the project applications we will not have the local
scoring tools until HUD actually releases the noo and the membership
approves it for the balance
state next we're going to look at project characteristics each year there are
Baseline components that each project must meet to be scored and considered to
be submitted um there are five threshold
questions that typically we ask of each new project application and renewal if
any of the answers to those threshold questions is a no that project is not
scored um we are looking to ensure that you're applying to serve an eligible
population so really looking to serve either category one or category four of
the homeless definition um because again we cannot serve those who are at eminent
risk of homelessness we're looking to ensure that you're applying for eligible costs
in your project application that you're an eligible entity applying for these
funds that your match is greater than or equal to
30% each of the projects must agree to participate in the coordinated entry
system they have to agree to use hmis or a comparable
database and also each project must be housing first and low
barrier um last year noo really placed a great emphasis
on getting new applicants that can help improve racial Equity including the
voices of people with lived experience they also really looked HUD was looking
for leveraging funding for housing outside of Continuum of Care funding and
also looking for agencies to partner a project with a healthc Care Organization
to respond to and prevent infectious diseases among people experiencing
homelessness T is really looking for all the continues of care to maximize their
use of mainstream resources when serving people experiencing
homelessness and they really want us partnering with public and private Health Care
organizations in order to ensure that our program participants receive Primary Care
housing related Services obtain medical insurance um they're really looking at
us to develop relationships with public health agencies to analyze data and
design approaches that reduce homelessness and improve the health of people experiencing
homelessness they are also really looking for us to partner with public housing authorities um in state and local
housing organizations to really utilize our coordin entry system develop more
housing units and provide housing subsidies to people experiencing
homelessness they also highlighted last year partnering with the local for Workforce Development Center to improve
employment opportunities this is also one of the things that HUD measures on a yearly
basis is looking at program participants connections to employment
and making sure that when we can we are connecting people to employment
resources has in the last couple of years really looked at any new project application that is leveraging housing
resources so we had one project who applied who is able to use some arpa
funding to fund two out of the seven units um through the arpa funding
instead of through Continuum of Care funding so kind of those Partnerships so if you're able to partner with your
local public housing authority where they are willing to do the rental assistance
side and then your agency would do the Supportive Services side they're really looking for those Partnerships to be
developed um and then again the health care really looking at leveraging health care which I know almost all of you
already work with all of these Healthcare organizations um and we also have the
1915i Medicaid benefit coming online as well um but really looking at how we're
partnering with those Healthcare organizations within our communities to provide services to program
participants so next so typically gone over this um once the
actual noo is released the Bureau of homeless services will release a
calendar and a timeline for any new and renewal project
applications we will also release a new project application template um it's a
Word document um that needs to be completed and submitted with all of the other required documentation in order
for your project to be considered to be put forth to HUD for potential
funding what we're really looking for in that new project application is for your agency to state things clearly you need
to write the application as if we do not know your agency
whatsoever um really saying this is what our project is going to do this is who we're going
to serve um using HUD Language by always say participant
instead of client um because that's the HUD word that I was trained to use um
really honing in on explaining what your Project's going to do how it's designed
who it's going to serve um and talking about your agency
as if the people reviewing it don't know your agency
whatsoever we also want you to make sure you're using upto-date terms um what type of project are you
looking for permanent Supportive Housing rapid rehousing um and really making sure
you're talking about your project design in your
narratives in regards to your budgets um again we've talked about this
briefly oh hold on sorry my other phone was ringing um permanent support of housing projects must have a head of
household with a disability to meet the chronic definition so you H this these
projects have to serve somebody with a disability um rapid rehousing projects
can only provide tenant-based rental assistance you cannot provide operating or leasing costs with these
projects you can also apply for project administrative funding this is Project
funding it's always a request of 10% of your overall budget um the of homeless Services takes
half of the administrative costs and as the recipient agency to do all of the
reporting and invoicing and other tasks that we do throughout the year including
monitoring um you can also apply for hmis funding um to request what you need to complete data
entry so some common mistakes that we've seen in the past couple years is that
people have subed project applications for an ineligible project type so they may have submitted an
application with a subpopulation that's not consistent with the project type or
your budget doesn't match the project type so you may ask for a budget of
$100,000 to serve two people that would not work and then lastly is also making sure
that your match is at that 30% initially when you submit the project
application we really want you to review the project application and make sure
that all of your numbers for the people you are serving within your application
match up um if you say in your narrative about the project we're going to serve
10 households that number should be consistent throughout your application because it's asked for several times and
really looking at making sure you're filling out the information in the chart that it's consistent and you're serving
the same number of people and then really making sure
budget is reasonable um if you're looking to only serve two people you
most likely don't need a full-time case manager for this
project and then with every new project application we ask for match letters um
and we do send out templates for those to be submitted with the application
I have included some program resources they are hyperlink so when I send the slids out you will all be able to see
them then anyone has any questions I know
this is a lot yeah hey Christie not so much a
question just a statement so like you know even though COC doesn't fund uh prevention exercises we do have other
tools in our kit so if people need help reach
out and I would say if you are interested in applying for a new project
whether it's rapid rehousing permanent support of housing reach out to me now um there's
limited things that I am able to say or talk to you about when the actual competition opens um I will share last
year's project application with everyone um along with these slides
you can see what it looks like it does change year to year but I do highly encourage you if you have questions
about applying for a new project reach out to me sooner rather than later because once the competition opens I can
I can't say much it's kind of like when we do our rfps through the state
does anyone else have any other questions it's hard to shrink the no for
process into time frame hi chrisy this is very very
helpful um I want to make sure that I'm not confusing two things because that would be a pretty usual um occurrence
for me would uh change of project be completely separate from a new project
or do you use those terms ter do you use those interchangeably so it depends on
the change of the project um because we can through each Year's noo we can
expand a project so for all of you on here who already have
contracts um you can expand your projects and make grow them whether it's
through Supportive Services more housing beds um we call those expansion projects
if you're looking to change the type of a project we typically do that through a grant Amendment Beth okay got it got it
totally different okay thank you said
no so we're really hoping um we did really really well last year in our noo
and got all six of the projects we applied for um we're hoping to get some
more new applicants this year in some more projects but really take a look at
what is in your region what do we need um because there are some gaps in our
system and we're really trying to hopefully fill some of those gaps so that we have more projects and more beds
and more Avail availability for people experiencing
homelessness thank you all I will send all this information out to you
shortly thanks CH bye thank you