Newsfeed Category: Funding

Federal Spending Bill Includes Housing Restorations, Cuts

Jan.14.2014

After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the US House and Senate Appropriations Committees yesterday released their budget for the 2014 federal fiscal year.

This budget provides significant relief to US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs from the harmful effects of sequestration cuts. McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance funding rose by 9%, which should minimize cuts to existing programs in next year’s Continuum of Care competition. This increase will have no impact on the 5% of programs that are on the chopping block in the current round of funding, however.

Both tenant-based and project-based rental assistance (Section 8) were increased in this budget. These programs, thankfully, will be funded above pre-sequester levels. The budget aims to avoid having any current tenant lose an existing voucher.

This is a substantial improvement over the sequestration budget levels. Overall, however, the budget remains a tight one. It will probably take a couple of months before New York State, the City and other localities know the exact program funding levels they will receive from HUD.

HCR Announces Early Unified Funding Round Winners

Jan.08.2014

NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) has announced the winners of its early Unified Funding Round awards. HCR funded ten projects with a total of $9.8 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). This amount represents more than one-third of the $26 million available this year. The agency also allocated more than $12 million in funding through the Housing Trust Fund. This amount equals roughly 40% of the total amount available. The Network expects that at least $3.4 million in LIHTC awards remain to be allocated under the supportive housing set-aside during the regular round, with awards expected to be announced in the spring.

You can read the full list of awardees here.

This early round prioritized shovel-ready projects, which included supportive housing for veterans with special needs or affordable housing that reserved up to 20 percent of its units for persons with developmental disabilities. The latter projects were supported by the NYS Office for People with Development Disabilities (OPWDD).

HCR funded one supportive housing project through its priority to house veterans. Concern for Independent Living received $1.275 million in LIHTCs for its Ronkonkoma project, which will include 30 units of veteran supportive housing in a 59-unit, mixed-use project. Several Network members were also involved in other early-round projects as either developers and/or service providers: Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany, Dunn Development Corporation, Housing Visions, Independent Home Care and Providence Housing Development Corporation.

We would like to congratulate all of our members who were successful in this year’s early round process.

OMH Releases RFP for 700 SRO Units

Dec.03.2013

The NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) has announced a Request for Proposals (RFP) for 700 units of Supported SRO housing. This funding will be available statewide and phased in over a two-year period through calendar year 2014-2015. Click here to read the RFP applications.

OMH will fund up to $300,000 per unit and provide operating and services funding, which will range from $14,875 upstate to $16,481 downstate per unit per year. These amounts are subject to annual appropriations.

OMH will allocate funding for units in the following New York regions:

NYC: 300 units
Hudson River: 150 units
Long Island: 100 units
Central New York: 75 units
Western New York: 75 units

As you apply for these units, keep the following dates in mind:

• Mandatory Letter of Intent: December 16, 2013
• Mandatory bidders' conference: January 8, 2014 or January 9, 2014
• Application due date: February 10, 2014

Applications for New Supportive Housing RFP Due Dec. 13

Dec.02.2013

The New York City Coalition on the Continuum of Care (CCoC) has released a new Request for Proposal (RFP) for new permanent supportive housing serving chronically homeless individuals and families through its Bonus & Reallocation Funding in the CCoC 2013 application. Please note that there is a quick turn around time for this RFP. Proposals are due Friday, December 13 at 5pm, and no extensions will be granted. You can read the RFP here.

As per HUD’s Funding Availability (NOFA) for the FY 2013 Continuum of Care (CoC) competition, the NYC CCoC is eligible to apply for new permanent supportive housing projects. This year, HUD is giving priority to the creation of new permanent supportive housing projects either through the creation of new congregate supportive housing or new or expanded scattered-site supportive housing serving 100% chronically homeless individuals and families.

Please note that Safe Havens, transitional housing, services only and prevention programs DO NOT qualify for this funding. The CoC also has $7,608,877 available for reallocation for new projects. The reallocation projects will be ranked in Tier I of the CoC application.

To learn how your organization can apply for this funding, head over to our RFP page.

OASAS Releases RFP for 70 Units of NY/NY III Supportive Housing

Aug.26.2013

The NYS Office of Alcoholism & Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) has just released a new Request for Proposals (RFP) for 70 units of NY/NY III supportive housing for chronically homeless families or families at serious risk of becoming chronically homeless in New York City in which the head of household has a substance use disorder. This classification marks this as NY/NY III Population G supportive housing. There is a total of $1,750,000 in available funding for this initiative. 

You can read the RFP here.

RFP Overview

Eligible applicants must be OASAS-certified social services or voluntary agencies. The RFP is for qualified social service agencies to provide up to 70 supportive housing apartment units for chronically homeless families or homeless families at serious risk of becoming chronically homeless in which the head of household suffers from a substance abuse disorder or a disabling medical condition. In an effort to serve underserved areas, there will be an award preference for both Staten Island (Richmond) and Queens Counties. OASAS will seek to award 20 to 30 units to agencies who submit proposals for housing in Staten Island and Queens. 

These units can be provided under these two approaches:

HCR Releases 2013 Unified Funding Round RFP

Aug.21.2013

NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) has released its annual Unified Funding Round Request for Proposals (RFP) for its Multifamily Capital and Credit Programs. The Network commends the State for once again committing a minimum of $4 million in federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) funding for supportive housing developments.

You can read the RFP here.

Funds available this year include roughly $25 million in LIHTC, $4 million in NYS Low Income Housing Tax Credits (SLIHC), $32 million in Housing Trust Fund (HTF) funding and $5.5 million in NYS HOME funds. Also available are $500,000 in Rural Area Revitalization Program (RARP) and $50,000 in Urban Initiatives (UI) funding, carried over from last year.

New this year, the funding round offers $5.4 million in funding through the Rural and Urban Community Investment Fund. This program will fund rural preservation projects and non-residential spaces in mixed developments across the state.

Those seeking funding must submit early round applications by October 10 and regular round applications by December 5.

HCR Releases Proposed Qualified Action Plan

Aug.08.2013

NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) has released its proposed 2013/14 Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) for the federal and state Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Programs. Some initial key changes the Network has identified in the QAP include:

• HCR has amended the the “Project Readiness” scoring criteria by increasing the scoring point value from five to 10 points for shovel-ready projects likely to promptly close on construction financing by virtue of the status of financing commitments, environmental approvals or clearances and local implementation measures in support of the project. 
• A new five-point scoring category, “Cost Effectiveness,” was added to foster cost containment by providing points for projects with total costs lower than other projects. More details on this will be available in the Request for Proposals (RFP).

HUD Announces Last of 2012 Awards

Aug.02.2013

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced the remainder of its 2012 funding awards for new Continuum of Care (CoC) homeless assistance grant programs. In all, HUD awarded New York State $2,021,191 for 18 new programs. This amount includes 10 planning contracts totaling $766,726 to assist communities in the process of developing their Continuum of Care in line with the new requirements of the HEARTH Act, including strategic planning, oversight and monitoring.

The other eight projects, totaling $1,254,465, will go to fund new permanent housing units. While this will yield a few hundred new units of homeless housing, many of these new programs were funded through a reallocation process, at the expense of closing or reducing another program. It is also but a drop in the bucket with an estimated 70,000 homeless people now in New York State.

Click here to read the full list of awardees.

Unified Funding Round Details Released

Jul.18.2013

NYS Homes & Community Renewal (HCR) has released details on its 2013 Unified Funding Round Request for Proposals (RFP) for its 2013 capital and credit programs.

The RFP, expected to come online by August 16, will offer $43 in capital funding and $29 million in tax credits to develop affordable and supportive housing. 

This year's funding round will have two application deadlines. The first deadline is for early round projects, which meet criteria that will be detailed in the RFP. The second deadline will be for all other capital projects. The application for early round projects must be completed and submitted by 5:00pm on October 10, 2013. All other Unified Funding Round capital applications must be completed and submitted by 5:00pm on December 5, 2013.

HPD Releases Supportive Housing RFQ

Jul.05.2013

The NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) is inviting housing developers to submit qualifications for the design and construction of new supportive housing projects. The agency released a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) on July 3, following an announcement made by HPD Commissioner Mathew Wambua at the Network's June conference that an RFQ was on the horizon.

For more information and to read the RFQ, see here.

Developers selected through this RFQ will be invited to submit proposals for the construction of supportive housing on City-owned sites controlled by HPD, the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC). The resulting projects will serve the City's goal of doubling supportive housing development beginning in the 2013 fiscal year.