Month: June 2023

HUD Announces More Than $43 Million in Stability Voucher Funding for PHAs and CoCs

~ Steven Molinari ~ Leave a comment

On June 5, HUD announced that they will make $43,439,000 in funding available for 3,379 Stability Vouchers. The vouchers are targeted to address homelessness among people in unsheltered settings and in rural communities.  The vouchers will be made available to 135 public housing authorities (PHAs) and partnering Continuum of Care (CoC) communities within 34 States.

Funding for the Stability Vouchers was made available through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which emphasizes the purpose of assisting families at risk of homelessness and those experiencing or attempting to flee domestic violence and sexual assault. A notice of interest (Notice PIH 2022-24) for the Stability Voucher Program, which explained procedures and requirements of the program, was published by HUD in August of 2022 and ended in October 2022.

All recipients of the awarded vouchers received at a minimum five vouchers. The range of vouchers received varied from five all the way to 377 vouchers to a single PHA.

For the full list of PHAs and partnering CoCs to receive funding please see here.

HUD Publishes HCV Mobility NOFO

~ Tushar Gurjal ~ Leave a comment

On June 1, HUD published a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) titled “Housing Mobility-Related Services.” The NOFO makes available $25 million for PHAs with voucher programs to use for mobility purposes. The Department expects to make 11 awards with a minimum award of $750,000 and a maximum award of $5 million. The application deadline is 11:59:59 pm ET on Aug. 30, 2023.

Eligible housing agencies are those with Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) annual contributions contracts (ACC) with HUD. Housing agencies may apply jointly, but the grant lead will be the lead PHA. Additionally, HUD will only consider one funding application per PHA.

Funds will be available for five years, and housing agencies must serve at least 300 families with at least one child aged 17 or younger. A PHA’s average annual caseload must be between 50 and 200 families.

As a part of their application, PHAs will have to submit a detailed housing mobility plan. The plan should discuss mobility related services (including financial assistance), administrative policies, and a cost proposal. The Department estimates that the average cost per family will be between $2,500 and $4,500. Program funds will only be disbursed to the lead PHA.

After the award, PHAs will have six months for a planning phase. This phase can be extended to a full year. After the planning phase, HUD will review the housing mobility plan and detail required changes.

Housing agencies must provide certain minimum mobility-related services and enact certain policies. Minimum services provided must include pre-move services; housing search assistance; direct outreach to opportunity area (defined as census tracts with a family poverty rate of 10% or lower) landlords; lease-up assistance; security deposit assistance only for rental units in opportunity areas; flexible family financial assistance; salaries and benefits for qualified staff; and program participant engagement in designing the mobility plan. Housing agencies must also adopt certain policies including high payment standards (110% of the Fair Market Rent [FMR], Small Area FMR, or an explanation of the rationale for not having high payment standards); minimum voucher search time of 90 days with a 30 day extension; permitting non-resident applicants to participating in the mobility program to port. There are certain optional mobility related services that PHAs may allow too.

Finally, PHAs may use up to 15% of the award for reasonable administrative costs.

The full mobility NOFO may be found here.