Technical and capacity building grants intended to amplify HUD funds
WASHINGTON, DC – May 15, 2012 – (RealEstateRama) — In a budget climate where state and local governments are challenged to do more with less, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today awarded $70 million in grants to help communities and non-profit organizations, improve their use of federal funds to revitalize neighborhoods, help the homeless and produce more affordable housing.
“These funds complement the eCon Planning Suite, new 21st century tools with new data and technology that HUD launched last week to help communities ensure that scarce federal dollars are targeted to where they are needed most and can achieve the biggest impact,” said HUD Assistant Secretary Mercedes Mãrquez. “The grants we award today will go a long way toward ensuring federally funded community development, affordable housing and homeless assistance work to make the greatest possible impact.”
The technical assistance and capacity building grants announced today are provided through HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD). HUD fundamentally changed its traditional program-by-program approach to technical assistance by creating OneCPD, a “cross-program” approach intended to help grantees improve their management systems and capacity to successfully carry out comprehensive and sustainable “place-based” development and revitalization strategies. OneCPD also allows grantees to “tell their story” of accomplishment by measuring the outputs of this assistance but the outcomes and the impact on their communities as well.
The grants awarded today include $62 million in technical assistance under OneCPD and$7 million to improve local homelessness data collection and reporting systems called Homeless Management Information Systems, or HMIS. In addition, nearly $1 million in grants will be provided under CPD’s Core Curricula offering courses and topic-specific trainings to improve grantee skills in development finance, environmental review and compliance, asset management and preservation, and construction and rehabilitation management.
HUD-funded technical assistance providers (see attached list) will offer one or more of the following areas of expertise to the Department’s grantee communities:
- Capacity building assistance in the areas of program design, technical execution, planning, financial management, and organizational structure.
- Consulting on community development, affordable housing, economic development, housing and services for homeless persons and those at risk of homelessness, organizational management, financing and underwriting, construction and rehabilitation management, project management and strategic planning.
- Facilitating and fostering local collaboration within local political structures.
- Knowledge management including developing, hosting or managing of websites, blogs, help desks, information/call center, mailing lists, data tracking systems, etc.
- Preparing policy guidance and tools or materials for HUD approval.
- Evaluating program design and effectiveness.
- Assessing performance measurement including establishing outcomes or benchmarks.
- Analyzing social policy in context of local landscape for planning and program design.
- Raising private equity investment, pre-development capital, preservation capital, or bank capital.
- Workforce capacity and development for grantees.
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HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all.
HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the
need for quality affordable rental homes: utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build
inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business.
More information about HUD and its programs is available on the Internet at www.hud.gov and
http://espanol.hud.gov. You can also follow HUD on twitter @HUDnews, on facebook at
www.facebook.com/HUD, or sign up for news alerts on HUD’s News Listserv.
Contact:
Brian Sullivan
(202) 402-7527
