HUD TO SPEED PROCESS FOR AWARDING GRANTS
Individual funding announcements will accelerate delivery of funding

WASHINGTON - In an effort to accelerate the process of awarding grants to State and local governments, non-profit organizations, and other community-based applicants, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today announced a new streamlined funding process. HUD will now announce funding notices on a program-by-program basis, an action that will speed up the application process for prospective grantees that would otherwise be required to wait for the publication of HUD's comprehensive funding notice.

"This new process is intended to make certain HUD grants are awarded in a much more timely and efficient manner," said HUD Secretary Steve Preston. "Today, we are removing a bottleneck in the flow of critically needed funding to our applicant community and thereby accelerating the process of putting our grants to work more quickly."

HUD believes that by making this change, funding notices or Notices of Funding Availability (NOFAs) will be available earlier in the fiscal year. To assist applicants in this transformation, HUD is publishing the anticipated schedule for release of the Fiscal Year 2009 notices (see below). The information regarding NOFA programs and schedules is subject to the availability of Congressional appropriations. As HUD receives appropriations, HUD may have to amend the anticipated dates as well as amend estimated amounts that may appear in the published NOFAs.

HUD will continue to require that applicants submit their applications electronically via www.grants.gov. Any changes to HUD-published NOFAs will be made available to the public through a Federal Register publication and published on this government-wide portal. Applicants are urged to sign up for Grants.gov's notification service to receive any changes to this General Section to HUD's FY2009 NOFAs.

Accelerating the grants process is a goal of Preston's ambitious 200-day plan for improving Departmental operations and delivering better services to the American people. To read the full text of the General Section of HUD's Notice of Funding Availability, visit HUD's website.

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The following schedule reflects the estimated publication date for HUD's Program-specific funding notices (NOFAs)