HUD Continuum of Care Grant

KS-505’s FY 2024 Continuum of Care on Homelessness’ Competition Public Notification for Proposals

Each year, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offers a national competitive funding opportunity to Continuums of Care (CoC) working to end homelessness. On July 31st, 2024, HUD released the fiscal year 2024 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), see NOFO

NEW! KS-505 CoC announces approved Consolidated Application and Priority Listing for FY2024 CoC Program Competition 

View the CoC-approved Consolidated Application here and the Priority Listing here. These were approved by the CoC Board on 10/23/24. Please send questions or comments to ritac@ucsjoco.org. The grant package will be submitted on 10/29/24. 

Each year, prior to submission of the annual Continuum of Care (CoC) Consolidated Application and Priority Listing, KS-505 posts the CoC-approved final draft of the application for funding on its website and notifies the CoC and community of its availability. In FY2024, KS-505 will be applying for $1,112,601 to support the renewal of 2 permanent supportive housing projects, 2 rapid rehousing projects, a homeless management information system, and the CoC Planning grants; and the creation of two DV rapid rehousing projects through DV reallocation and DV Bonus as allowed by HUD. UCS facilitates Johnson County’s CoC and leads the annual Consolidated Application and Priority Listing process to HUD. 

This year’s application reflects the work of many individuals and organizations who actively collaborate year-round to prevent and end homelessness in Johnson County. The process and application are both an opportunity to celebrate what we’ve accomplished and recognition of the need to continue to improve outcomes for clients and the system’s responsiveness.  

Project Applicant Training
Letter of Intent Deadline
KS-505 CoC Application Timeline
Program Description
HUD Policy Priorities
Reallocation
Scoring Tool

Project Applicant Training: August 19th, 2024, 2pm-4pm. UCS will host a Project Applicant Training to provide adequate time for any organization or agency committed to ending homelessness in Johnson County, KS, to learn about applying for CoC funding. To RSVP for the Project Applicant Training, email ritac@ucsjoco.org.

Letter of Intent Deadline: August 28th, 2024 by 4pm. Interested applicants must submit a Letter of Intent by August 28th, 2024 by 4pm to ritac@ucsjoco.org and cathyg@ucsjoco.org. The Letter of Intent must include:

  • Agency contact information, including point of contact
  • Type of project to be funded with a brief description
  • Amount of funding the agency plans to request

Each year, the CoC accepts proposals from organizations whether they have previously received funding or not. To join the CoC email list and receive updates on this funding cycle, contact ritac@ucsjoco.org.

KS-505 CoC Application Timeline. Click here for the 2024 CoC Application Timeline. The timeline was approved by the KS-505 CoC Board on August 2nd, 2024. Any necessary updates to the timeline will be subject to CoC Board approval and sent to the CoC email list.

For more information, please contact Rita Carr at ritac@ucsjoco.org.

Program Description. The Continuum of Care (CoC) Program (24 CFR part 578) is designed to promote a community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; to provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, states, and local governments to quickly re-house homeless individuals, families, persons fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and youth while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness; to promote access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families; and to optimize self-sufficiency among those experiencing homelessness.

In FY2024, the KS-505 Continuum of Care, which serves Johnson County KS, anticipates that it will be eligible to apply for approximately $950,000 based on 2023 awards and bonuses.

Eligible projects in the FY2024 CoC Program Competition are:

  1. Permanent Housing
    1. Permanent Supportive Housing
    2. Rapid-Rehousing
    3. Joint Transitional Housing to Rapid-Rehousing
  2. Supportive Services Only; and
  3. HMIS

For more information on the CoC program components eligible for funding and HUD's policy priorities, the FY2024 NOFO can be found at NOFO . HUD’s full CoC Program Competition page is CoC Program Competition | HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

HUD Policy Priorities. HUD’s selection criteria include the following priorities to support the goal of ending homelessness:

  1. Ending homelessness for all persons. In 2023, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) presented All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness to the President and Congress. The plan is built around six pillars: three foundations — equity, data and evidence, and collaboration — and three solutions — housing and supports, crisis response, and prevention. The work funded through this NOFO will support the actions and strategies proposed within the pillars. To end homelessness, CoCs should identify, engage, and effectively serve all persons experiencing homelessness. CoCs should measure their performance based on local data that consider the challenges faced by all subpopulations experiencing homelessness in the geographic area (e.g., veterans, youth, families, older adults, those experiencing chronic homelessness, and people with disabilities, including those living with HIV/AIDS). CoCs should partner with housing, health care, and supportive services providers and agencies to expand housing options, such as permanent supportive housing, housing subsidies, and rapid rehousing. Additionally, CoCs should use local data to determine the characteristics of individuals and families with the highest needs and longest periods experiencing homelessness to develop housing and supportive services tailored to their needs.
  2. Use a Housing First approach. Housing First prioritizes rapid placement and stabilization in permanent housing and utilizes housing as a platform for providing supportive services that improve a person’s health and well-being. CoC Program funded projects should help individuals and families move quickly into permanent housing without preconditions and ensure that participants can choose the services they need to improve their health and well-being and remain in their housing. Additionally, CoCs should engage landlords and property owners to identify housing units available for rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing participants, remove barriers to entry, and adopt client-centered service practices. HUD encourages CoCs to assess how well Housing First approaches are being implemented in their communities.
  3. Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness. In recent years, the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness has risen significantly, including a rising number of encampments in many communities across the country. People living unsheltered have high rates of physical and mental health challenges, including substance use disorders. CoCs should explore all available resources, including CoC and ESG funded assistance, housing subsidies, health care programs, and other supportive services to help improve unsheltered people’s well-being and help them move as quickly as possible to permanent housing. CoCs should work with law enforcement and their state and local governments to enlist their support for housing people residing in encampments, and to avoid practices that criminalize homelessness. Criminalization of homelessness risks the health of people living unsheltered and makes it more difficult for them to move into permanent housing. Additionally, CoCs should use their Coordinated Entry process to promote participant choice, coordinate homeless assistance and mainstream housing and services, and ensure people experiencing homelessness receive assistance quickly.
  4. Improving System Performance. CoCs should be assessing the performance of all homelessness projects using system performance measures (e.g., average length of homeless episodes, rates of return to homelessness, rates of exit to permanent housing destinations). CoCs should review all projects eligible for renewal under this FY 2024–2025 CoC NOFO to determine their effectiveness in serving people experiencing homelessness, including their cost-effectiveness. The CoC Competition includes several options to help CoCs improve their effectiveness, including reallocation, expansion, and transition grants, and CoC’s should take advantage of these options to improve their overall performance. CoCs should also look for opportunities to implement continuous quality improvement and other process improvement strategies.
  5. Partnering with Housing, Health, and Service Agencies. Using cost performance and outcome data, CoCs should improve how all available resources are utilized to end homelessness. HUD encourages CoCs to maximize the use of mainstream and other community-based resources when serving persons experiencing homelessness and should:
    1. Work closely with public and private healthcare organizations and assist program participants to receive primary care, receive housing related services, and obtain medical insurance to address healthcare needs. This includes developing close partnerships with public health agencies to analyze data and design approaches that reduce homelessness, improve the health of people experiencing homelessness, and prevent and address disease outbreaks, including HIV/AIDS.
    2. Partner closely with PHAs and state and local housing organizations to utilize coordinated entry, develop housing units, and provide housing assistance to people experiencing homelessness. These partnerships can also help CoC Program participants exit permanent supportive housing through Housing Choice Vouchers and other available housing options. CoCs and PHAs should especially work together to implement targeted programs such as HUD-VASH, Mainstream Vouchers, Family Unification Program (FUP) Vouchers, Fostering Youth Independence (FYI) Vouchers, and other housing voucher programs targeted to people experiencing homelessness. CoCs should coordinate with their state and local housing agencies on the utilization of new program resources provided through the Homelessness Assistance and Supportive Services Program (HOME-ARP) that was created through the American Rescue Plan. CoCs should also work with organizations administering other housing assistance, such as assistance provided through HUD’s Section 202 and 811 programs, HUD’s Project Based Rental Assistance, and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s housing assistance programs.
    3. Partner with local workforce development centers to improve employment opportunities.
    4. Work with Tribal organizations to ensure that Tribal members can access CoC-funded assistance when a CoC's geographic area borders a Tribal area.
  6. Racial Equity. In nearly every community, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color are substantially over-represented in the homeless population. In this NOFO, HUD is emphasizing system and program changes to address racial equity within CoCs and projects. Responses to preventing and ending homelessness should address racial inequities to ensure successful outcomes for all persons experiencing homelessness using proven approaches, such as: partnering with a racially diverse set of community partners and people experiencing homelessness and partnering with organizations with experience serving underserved populations. CoCs should review local data, policies, procedures, and processes to identify barriers that result in racial disparities and take steps to eliminate barriers to improve racial equity and to address disparities.
  7. Improving Assistance to LGBTQ+ Individuals. Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation manifests differently for different individuals and often overlaps with other forms of prohibited discrimination. CoCs should address the needs of LGBTQ+, transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary individuals and families in their planning processes. Additionally, when considering which projects to select in their local competition to be included in their application to HUD, CoCs should ensure that all projects provide privacy, respect, safety, and access regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. CoCs should also partner with organizations with expertise in serving LGBTQ+ populations.
  8. Persons with Lived Experience/Expertise. The people who know best what solutions will effectively end homelessness are those who are experiencing homelessness. HUD expects CoCs to include people with lived homeless expertise and experience in their local planning and decision-making processes. People with lived experience/expertise should determine how local policies may need to be revised and updated to improve the effectiveness of homelessness assistance programs, including participating in planning and oversight activities, developing local competition processes, monitoring and evaluation. CoC leaders and community partners should prioritize hiring people who have experienced homelessness in areas where their expertise is needed.
  9. Building an Effective Workforce. Homeless assistance providers need effective, well-supported staff to provide high quality assistance. Unfortunately, recruiting and retaining qualified staff for programs to assist persons experiencing homelessness has proven difficult due to low pay and the challenging nature of the work. To address this issue, HUD is applying cost of living adjustments to supportive service activities and other staffing-focused budget lines to allow CoC budgets to better keep up with rising costs. HUD also encourages CoCs to work with their funders and other community stakeholders to improve pay and support for people who work in the homelessness sector.
  10. Increasing Affordable Housing Supply. The lack of affordable housing is the main driver of homelessness. CoCs play a critical role in educating local leaders and stakeholders about the importance of increasing the supply of affordable housing and the specific consequences of the continued lack of affordable housing. CoCs should be communicating with jurisdiction leaders, including for the development of Consolidated Plans, about the harmful effects of the lack of affordable housing, and they should engage local leaders about steps such as zoning and land use reform that would increase the supply of affordable housing. This NOFO awards points to CoCs that take steps to engage local leaders about increasing affordable and accessible housing supply.

CoC Project Application Scoring Tool: The CoC Performance Committee has updated the CoC Project Application Scoring Tool to align with this year’s NOFO. The tool can be found here. The Committee is made up of CoC members who are not representatives of organizations competing for funding. They will be required to evaluate applications, review project performance, and make recommendations on project application rank order and final funding requests as consistent with HUD guidelines.

Reallocation: KS-505 regularly reviews the performance of CoC funded programs to assure that they meet the needs of residents experiencing homelessness, result in successful and sustainable permanent housing, and that awarded funding is spent down in a timely manner so that funds are not returned unspent. KS-505 members work together to support the success of CoC-funded programs. However, under certain circumstances HUD CoC funding may be recommended for reallocation due to a number of factors. Click here for KS-505’s Governance Charter including the reallocation process.