Nearly $38 million in H.U.D. funds awarded to Minnesota

Cook and Lake County will receive $26,271 for Transitional Housing from the recent H.U.D. Funding cycle.

“Access to stable housing is a basic necessity – the safety of a home is essential, especially as we continue to fight the COVID-19 virus,” H.U.D. Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said. “This Continuum of Care program grant, coupled with the historic resources in the American Rescue Plan, will deliver communities the resources needed to ensure that every person in a respective community has the equitable opportunity to a safe and stable home.”

Last Thursday, March 17, Minnesota H.U.D. granted nearly $38 million via 211 Continuum of Care (CoC) Competition Awards to Minnesota housing and service organizations to address homelessness throughout the state. In total, the Midwest Region received more than $451 million via 1,369 awards. The awards will provide funding to communities to help individuals and families experiencing homelessness move into permanent housing with access to supportive services, with the overarching goal of longterm stability.

Some of the other Northeast Minnesota H.U.D. Awards went to Lake County Rental Assistance, which picked up $13,684. The Salvation Army received $110,553 for Northeast Minnesota Rapid Re-housing. Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency “Life Transitional Housing” was awarded $19,879 for 2021, and Northeast Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans received $94,039.

This Competitive Funding Notice establishes the funding criteria for the F.Y. 2021 Continuum of Care (CoC) Program. H.U.D. is making available approximately $2.65 billion through a competitive process to distribute Fiscal Year 2021 appropriated funds to CoC grant recipients, including roughly $77,000,000, available for non-competitive YHDP renewal and replacement expiring grants, and up to $102,000,000 available for Domestic Violence (DV) Bonus projects.

The Continuum of Care (CoC) Program is designed to promote a community wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; to provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, states, Indian Tribes, or tribally designated housing entities (as defined in section 4 of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 (25 U.S.C. 4103) (TDHEs)), and local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals, families, persons fleeing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and youth while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness; to promote access to and effective utilization of mainstream programs by homeless individuals and families, and to optimize self-sufficiency among those experiencing homelessness.

“The CoC program is designed to promote a community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness. The program is the largest source of federal grant funding for homeless services and housing programs servicing people experiencing homelessness. The 2021 awards include approximately $102 million for new domestic violence support projects. The awards also fund new projects that focus on adding permanent housing to communities including new permanent supportive housing, new rapid rehousing, and projects that provide transitional housing to households and then shift them to rapid rehousing,” said Midwest H.U.D. Public Affairs Officer, Andrea Roebker.