On June 22, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a new funding source, the Special Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to Address Unsheltered and Rural Homelessness for 2022. Referred to as the Special NOFO, this supplemental competition funding intends to target efforts to reduce homelessness particularly in communities with very high levels of unsheltered homelessness and homelessness in rural areas. Through this Special NOFO, HUD will award funding to communities to implement coordinated approaches — grounded in Housing First and public health principles — to reduce the prevalence of unsheltered homelessness, and improve services engagement, health outcomes, and housing stability among highly vulnerable unsheltered individuals and families.

The $322 million in competitive funding will be made available to communities across the country through a first-of-its-kind opportunity to address unsheltered homelessness and homeless encampments. This Special NOFO has a submission deadline of October 20, 2022. There is a cap of 10 CoC’s per state to be awarded these funds and California has 44 CoCs.

The Special NOFO requires CoCs to develop a comprehensive plan, rooted in equity, for serving individuals and families experiencing homelessness with severe service needs. CoCs are expected to create an inclusive planning process, bringing a wide variety of local stakeholders to the table to meet these goals – including people with lived homelessness experience and those from underserved communities or for those who are overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness. CoCs will need to ensure meetings are accessible to all who need to be there, including arranging transportation and scheduling needs.

Further bringing inclusivity into the planning process, CoCs should also partner with organizations that provide services for those experiencing, or who are at risk of experiencing homelessness. This will ensure that plans reflect the capacity and resources of the broader homeless system, and should also strengthen future collaborations between organizations and CoCs. They should work together to develop group norms and goals, including shared terminology and a common vision.

In the coming weeks, the Navigational Guides and Detailed Instructions will be released to help CoCs and project applicants access the applications and answer the questions on each form. Once posted, these resources will be available via the HUD.gov Special NOFO page.

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Additionally, on August 1, HUD released the long-awaited Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Fiscal Year 2022 CoC Program Competition.  HUD’s Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs (SNAPS) completed the FY 2022 Grant Inventory Worksheet (GIW) initial review process and has posted the GIWs for Continuum of Care (CoC) Collaborative Applicant and project applicant review. For San Diego, the CoC NOFO competition will allow the Collaborative Applicant (the Regional Task Force on Homelessness) to complete a local competition and submit applications for over $30 million in renewal and new project funding. The federal due date for this application is September 30, 2022. Updates regarding the NOFO can be found on our website by clicking here.