The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the confusingly-acronymed “Foster Youth to Independence” (FYI) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) in July 2022; I say “confusingly-acronymed” because, if it were me, I’d not choose an acronym that is already incredibly common among nonprofits and public agencies. Every time I read “FYI,” I think of “for your information.” Nonetheless, I wasn’t charged with naming this program, though I am sensitive to acronyms, being a grant writer who comes up with acronyms professionally. For example, we avoid job titles like “Community Outreach Worker,” given that we don’t want to inadvertently stir bovine associations as the acronym would be COW.
Apart from the acronym, the FYI program NOFO was attractive: $15 million for 20 awards. Only public housing authorities (PHAs) were eligible to apply; the NOFO said that “During previous competitions HUD has received applications from individuals,” although those individuals must have been very confused, if they went all the way through the application process. We can help alleviate such confusion: just call us at 800.540.8906 ext. 1, or email us at seliger@seliger.com, for a fast, free fee quote to complete an FYI proposal, or any HUD application. Having written dozens of funded HUD grants, we’re familiar with HUD and read NOFOs closely.
The July 2022 FYI NOFO, to use that example, says that the PHA has to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) from the Public Child Welfare Agencies (PCWAs—more acronyms!), and this requirement will further narrow the applicant pool: lots of PHAs are likely to be unable to get the local PCWA to cooperate. In theory, public agencies are supposed to work for the good of the public, and to cooperate with one another. In practice, that often doesn’t happen, so the FYI program relies on those local organizations being sufficiently functional to cooperate. We’ve written before about how many partnerships and cooperative agreements aren’t really necessary to a given organization functioning effectively. Foster care may be different, though, since the local foster family agencies (FFAs), which are usually funded by the local PCWA, often have their own challenges.
Overall, my impression is that PHAs’ biggest problem is a lack of housing in general, and restricted ability to build new housing locally. Decades of housing restrictions mean that building any housing—including new public housing—is extremely difficult, and waitlists are long. The result is programs like this one, that provide Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs—AKA “Section 8”) for existing units, when most PHAs should really be trying to build new units. Building the new units, though, runs up against local government restrictions, which apply to PHAs as much as to any other builder. The FYI program lets PHAs apply for as few as three HCVs and a maximum of 75 (for PHAs with 2,000 or more units).
During the review and selection process, HUD said that it would “consider an applicant’s past performance in managing funds,” which implies a real penalty for previous mismanagement of funds. It’s severe enough that HUD mentions it at least twice in the FY ’22 NOFO: on page 35, and again on page 36, when HUD speaks to its desire to “assess applicant risk” and look at an applicant’s “History of performance.”
Overall, FYI is a good program for the right PHA applicants. Maybe your organization is one of the right applicants. If so, let us do the hard work in making sure your application shines. Working on foster-care-related issues is hard, so getting someone else to do the grant writing is an intelligent way to specialize and allow you to concentrate on what your organization does best.