The continuum of care (COC) program is designed to promote community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness; provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, states, and local…

This $5,899,019.00 Continuum of Care (CoC) Program grant, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (CFDA 14.267), is designed to quickly house homeless individuals and families in Arizona while minimizing the trauma of homelessness. The grant funds a range of eligible activities including permanent housing, transitional housing, supportive services, homeless management information systems, and homelessness prevention.

Key activities under this award include:

• Providing rental assistance, leasing, and operating costs for 163 permanent supportive housing units across 13 Arizona counties, targeting chronically homeless individuals and families where at least one adult has a disability
• Administering 49 rapid rehousing units for homeless individuals and families in Cochise, Gila, La Paz, Mohave, Pinal, and Yuma Counties
• Supporting the operations of 7 Local Coalitions/Continuums to End Homelessness to coordinate regional homeless services and align with HUD requirements
• Funding a training center to provide online courses on CoC requirements and best practices for homeless service providers across the 13 rural Arizona counties

The sub-awardees for this grant include a mix of non-profit organizations, county governments, and tribal entities with expertise in homeless services, permanent supportive housing, and CoC planning and implementation.

Activities

Continuum of care program funds may be used to pay for the eligible costs used to establish and operate projects under five program components: (1) permanent housing, which includes permanent supportive housing for persons with disabilities, and rapid rehousing; (2) transitional housing; (3) supportive services only; (4) homeless management information systems (hmis), and (5) in some cases, homelessness prevention. Thirteen types of assistance may be provided through the continuum of care (COC) program: (1) COC planning activities/costs for designing and carrying out a collaborative process for the development of an application to HUD; (2) united funding agency (UFA) costs for fiscal control and accounting necessary to assure the proper disbursal of, and accounting for, federal funds awarded to subrecipients under the continuum of care program, (3) acquisition of real property (including structures) for use in the provision of housing or supportive services; (4) rehabilitation of structures to provide housing or supportive services; (5) new construction, including the building of a new structure or building an addition to an existing structure for use as supportive housing; (6) leasing of a structure or structures, or portions thereof, to provide housing or supportive services; (7) rental assistance, which may be short-term, medium-term, or long-term, as well as tenant-based, project-based, or sponsor-based, for transitional or permanent housing; (8) supportive services to assist program participants obtain and maintain housing; (9) operating costs of supportive housing; (10) costs of implementing and operating hmis; (11) project administrative costs; (12) relocation costs; and (13) indirect costs in accordance with 2 CFR parts 200, as applicable. In addition to using grant funds for the eligible costs described above, recipients and subrecipients in continuums of care designated as high performing communities may also use grant funds to provide housing relocation and stabilization services and short- and/or medium-term rental assistance to individuals and families at risk of homelessness as set forth in 24 CFR 576.103 and 24 CFR 576.104, if necessary to prevent the individual or family from becoming homeless. Limitation on use of funds: no assistance provided under program (or any state or local government funds used to supplement this assistance) may be used to replace state or local funds previously used, or designated for use, to assist homeless persons or persons at-risk of homelessness.

Expected outcomes

Decrease in the number individuals and families experiencing homelessness, more specifically using performance indicators such as the length of time homeless, returns to homelessness over time, and exits to permanent housing. COC performance profile reports can be found at https://WWW.hudexchange.info/programs/COC/COC-performance-profile-reports/.

Intended beneficiaries

Individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

Subrecipient activities

The subrecipient activities are unknown at the time of award.