Part I: Understanding HUD's SuperNOFA
What Changes Are Associated with the SuperNOFA?

Publication date

The publication date—when the funding information is printed in the Federal Register—for all of the programs within the SuperNOFA will be the same. For example, instead of publishing separate housing and community development NOFAs on different dates throughout the year, funding information for all programs will be published on the same date in one SuperNOFA. For 2000, the SuperNOFA will be published in late February.

Submission policy

To ensure fairness to all participants and in accordance with the principals of relevant laws, late applications are ineligible for consideration in HUD's grant competitions. As part of the new SuperNOFA process HUD has established a uniform late policy for all programs covered by the SuperNOFA. The late policy is explained in the SuperNOFA. Although the late policy is uniform for all programs, the actual date and time when an application for a specific program is considered late is based upon the submission date, time, and address established for that program. Therefore, you should pay special attention to these items, which are listed in the SuperNOFA. HUD encourages you to begin working on your proposals immediately so that you may maximize coordination and ensure that your application is submitted on time. As always, HUD will accept, and in fact encourages, the submission of your application before the submission due dates listed in the SuperNOFA.

Common factors for award

Secretary Cuomo has established a policy of HUD responding to community needs. Therefore, most programs announced in the SuperNOFA now use five criteria, known as "factors for award," to rate and rank applications in the grant competitions. In addition to addressing real need more directly, using common factors for award makes preparing your grant applications more manageable if you are applying for funding under several different HUD programs.

The factors for award are as follows:

1. Capacity.
2. Need/Extent of the Problem.
3. Soundness of Approach.
4. Leveraging Resources.
5. Comprehensiveness and Coordination.
   

Put in a slightly different order, the factors can be interpreted in the following manner. "Need/Extent of the Problem" asks you to describe what the problem is and how severe it is. It also asks whether or not addressing the problem has been identified as a priority by the community. "Soundness of Approach" asks what you plan to do to address the problem. In various ways it asks whether or not what is planned makes sense, is feasible, and is likely to produce positive results related to the problem. "Capacity" asks whether or not you have access to the staffing and administrative resources necessary to successfully implement your planned activities and manage the grant properly. "Leveraging Resources" asks what resources, beyond those provided by the HUD grant, you plan to use in implementing the proposed activities. "Comprehensiveness and Coordination" asks how your proposed activities relate to other activities/strategies taking place in the community. It also asks the extent to which you are involved in broader discussions about how community resources are allocated.

The content of these five factors may vary slightly and be measured differently during the application review according to the goals of specific programs. For example, the Brownfields Economic Development Initiative might measure "need" as the extent of brownfields and poverty in a target community; whereas, Youthbuild might measure "need" as the proportion of young high school dropouts and poverty in a community. The User's Guide is a supplement to the SuperNOFA, not a replacement. Anyone applying for funds must refer to the SuperNOFA and program application kits for details on how each program defines and measures these factors. The following is a more detailed discussion of each factor.

Factor 1—Capacity—addresses the extent to which you have the organizational resources necessary to successfully implement your proposed activities in a timely manner. Such resources include a staff of sufficient size possessing knowledge and experience in your proposed program activities. In cases where you will use personnel not considered staff of your organization, you may be asked to demonstrate timely and easy access to qualified experts/professionals. Relevant experience may include experience in managing grants. In cases where you previously received funding related to the program area from which funding is currently being sought, experience may be evaluated in terms of your ability to achieve measurable progress in implementing your most recent grant awards.

Factor 2—Need/Extent of the Problem—refers to the extent to which there is an urgent need for funding the proposed activities to address a documented need in the community or target area where the activities will take place. When applying, you should focus on demonstrating the extent of the problem in the geographical area that will be targeted by your program. For example, when you propose to target activities to a particular neighborhood, you should document the extent of need in that neighborhood, as opposed to the larger community in which the neighborhood is located. The need should be relevant to the intent of your proposed activities and documented using sound and reliable data wherever possible. Where firm statistical data are not available for the target area other means of documenting need are acceptable. Wherever possible, you are encouraged to link the documentation of need to needs and data identified in the community's Consolidated Plan including the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice.⁸

To obtain a copy of your community's Consolidated Plan contact the community development office of your local government or your local HUD field office. A list of HUD field offices and phone numbers is provided in Appendix A (Persons with hearing or speech impediments may access any of those numbers via TTY by calling the Federal Relay Service at 1-800-877-8339). To obtain a copy of your community's Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice contact the housing and community development office of your local government. Small cities which are Community Development Block Grant nonentitlement communities should contact the offices of their State government instead of their local government for copies of the Consolidated Plan including the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice.

Factor 3—Soundness of Approach—addresses the quality and appropriateness of your proposed program. The exact criteria that will be considered in rating this factor will vary by program, and are detailed in the SuperNOFA. Examples of some criteria that might be considered include the extent to which: 1) your work plan details the specific activities to be performed and benefits to be achieved; 2) your activities in the plan give priority to the needs identified in factor two; 3) activities proposed in your work plan affirmatively further fair housing; 4) activities in your plan will produce measurable results related to the purposes of the grant program in a reasonable time period; 5) your activities will produce products or ideas that can be used in other communities; and 6) activities in your plan further the policy priorities of HUD.

Factor 4—Leveraging Resources—refers to your ability to secure resources beyond those provided by the specific program from which you are seeking funds. The purpose of this factor is to encourage you to obtain resources which can be combined with HUD's program resources to increase the chances of achieving the purposes of the specific activities being proposed. Resources leveraged may include funding or in-kind contributions, such as services or equipment. Partners providing the leveraged resources may include governmental entities, public or private nonprofit organizations, for-profit private organizations, individuals, or other entities willing to partner with you. HUD is also looking for documentary evidence of these resources through a letter or other means, signed by an authorized official of the organization providing the resources. This factor focuses on resources to be allocated to the specific activities you are proposing; therefore, you should give special consideration to creating partnerships that are appropriate for designing and implementing your proposed activities, as opposed to simply including as many organizations as possible.

Factor 5—Comprehensiveness and Coordination—addresses whether or not your proposed strategy is comprehensive and coordinated with related activities in the community. The purpose of this factor is to ensure that, wherever possible, grantees do not operate programs in isolation, but instead link them to related activities and organizations to improve the overall effectiveness of all efforts being undertaken in a particular community. Where appropriate, this factor also assesses whether or not you have been, or plans to become, involved with the Consolidated Planning (including the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice) process.

Please note that while coordination is referenced in both factor 4 and factor 5 there are subtle, but important, distinctions between the types of coordination addressed by each factor. Factor 4 addresses coordination within a specific project, while factor 5 addresses the extent to which you coordinate your proposed activities, and are involved in general, with other entities in the community. For example, if you were applying for funding from the Lead-based Paint Hazard Control program to use to reduce lead-based paint hazards in a target community, factor 4 would focus on additional resources leveraged to implement your lead hazard reduction program. Factor 5 would focus on the coordination between the lead hazard reduction program and broader community development initiatives, such as housing rehabilitation or Healthy Homes Initiative, taking place or planned for the target area and/or the broader community in which the target area is located. Often, a particular program may not have multiple ties to other community efforts, but it is important that your organization and others be at the table when decisions are being made about community spending. The community as a whole benefits from this interaction.

Applications for multiple programs

One of HUD's objectives in using the SuperNOFA process is to minimize the time you spend on filling out grant applications. Over time we want to provide you with one application that can be used to apply for as few as one, or as many as all, of the programs for which you are eligible. As a step towards this goal, for FY 2000 HUD has combined several individual programs into categories based upon the purposes of the programs. Each group of programs has its own application kit containing the application information and materials for each of the programs within that group. If you are eligible for, and chooses to apply for, more than one grant program in a particular group, you will be able to use parts of one application to fulfill certain requirements of a related program's application. In addition, you will only need to fill out certain standard forms and certifications once to fulfill the requirements of all the programs for which you are applying.

Special Note on Some Programs in the SuperNOFA

The Continuum of Care programs which include the Supportive Housing Program (SHP), Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy (SRO) Program for Homeless Individuals, and Shelter Plus Care (S+C) Program, were streamlined prior to the implementation of the SuperNOFA process and have only two factors for award = Need and Coordination. Programs under the SuperNOFA that are awarded on a "first come-first serve" basis are not rated and ranked, and therefore do not use these factors.

Who can apply for SuperNOFA programs?

Each of the programs included in the SuperNOFA has different statutory and congressionally-mandated requirements for determining which organizations are eligible to apply for funding. Table II provides a listing of the SuperNOFA grant programs arranged by the type of organization eligible to apply for each program. The table is only a guide. The specific definitions of the broad applicant types listed in table II may vary slightly by program. You must read the "Eligible Applicants" section for the specific programs in the SuperNOFA to determine eligibility for program funds.

While HUD is strictly prohibited from awarding funding to ineligible applicants, we strongly encourage ineligible groups with expertise to partner with an eligible entity who would be the formal applicant.

⁹ Please refer to the "Eligible Applicants" section of the program description in the SuperNOFA for specific qualifications pertaining to who is eligible to apply.

¹⁰ For Community Development Work Study, a State may apply on behalf of two or more colleges or universities located within the State. The schools must offer masters degree programs in eligible community building fields.

¹¹ To qualify for Section 811 Supportive Housing the PHA must be 501 (c) (3) tax exempt.

¹² For CDWSP, the nonprofit must be an areawide planning organization. Areawide planning organizations may apply only on behalf of two or more colleges or universities offering masters degree programs in eligible community building fields.

¹³ For FHIP-PEI the nonprofit must be a fair housing enforcement organization with at least one year of experience in complaint intake and investigation, testing for fair housing violations, and meritorious claims. For FHIP-FHOI the nonprofit must be a qualified fair housing enforcement organization or a nonprofit organizing to build capacity to provide fair housing enforcement.

¹⁴ For HCP the nonprofit must be a HUD-approved Housing Counseling Agency.

¹⁵ Only entities that own federally assisted low-income housing may apply.

¹⁶ Only national and regional organizations which cover two or more States or consortia may apply.

¹⁷ To qualify for the HBCU program the college or university must be designated as an HBCU by the U.S. Department of Education.

¹⁸ To qualify for CDWS, the college or university must offer a masters degree program in a community building field.

¹⁹ To qualify for HSIAC the college or university must meet the U.S. Department of Education's definition of an Hispanic-Serving Institution.

²⁰ To qualify for AN/NHIAC the college or university must meet the U.S. Department of Education's definition of an Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian Institution.

²¹ For MHDEP the housing assistance must be Federal housing assistance.