Sources-Sought-RFI - FINAL.pdf

Sources Sought Synopsis

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is issuing this sources sought synopsis as a means of conducting market research to identify parties having an interest in and the resources to support this requirement for the Research Design, Data Collection and

Analysis Plan for the Moving to Work Expansion Asset Building Cohort. The result of this market research will contribute to determining the method of procurement. The applicable North

American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code assigned to this procurement is 541611.

There is no solicitation at this time. This request for capability information does not constitute a request for proposals; submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary; the government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred.

If your organization has the potential capacity to perform these contract services, please provide the following information: 1) organization name, address, email address, website address, telephone number, and size and type of ownership for the organization; and 2) tailored capability statements addressing the particulars of this effort, with appropriate documentation supporting claims of organizational and staff capability. If significant subcontracting or teaming is anticipated in order to deliver technical capability, organizations should address the administrative and management structure of such arrangements.

The Government will evaluate market information to ascertain potential market capacity to 1) provide services consistent in scope and scale with those described in this notice and otherwise anticipated; 2) secure and apply the full range of corporate financial, human capital, and technical resources required to successfully perform similar requirements; 3) implement a successful project management plan that includes: compliance with program schedules; cost containment; meeting and tracking performance; hiring and retention of personnel and risk mitigation; and 4) provide services under a performance based service acquisition contract.

Based on the responses to this sources sought notice/market research, this requirement may be set-aside for small businesses or procured through full and open competition, and multiple awards may be made. Telephone inquiries will not be accepted or acknowledged, and no feedback or evaluations will be provided to companies regarding their submissions.

Submission Instructions: Interested parties who consider themselves qualified to perform the above-listed services are invited to submit a response to this Sources Sought Notice by 12:00 pm

MDT, JULY 11, 2022. All responses under this Sources Sought Notice must be emailed to

Kathy Gatewood Clark at Kathy.L.Clark@hud.gov. Additional information on the required services is listed below.

If you have any questions concerning this opportunity, please contact: Kathy Gatewood Clark

@ 720-672-5432

Background:

MTW Expansion

The Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration confers special status on selected PHAs, giving them the ability to get exemptions from certain HUD rules. As of 2016, there were 39 MTW

PHAs (now known as the “initial 39”). The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016 authorized

HUD to award MTW authority to 100 additional PHAs by September 2022 and required that this expansion involve rigorous research on policy innovations. MTW expansion PHAs will be selected in cohorts; each cohort will test a policy idea for improving the delivery of federally assisted housing and promoting housing choice and self-sufficiency for HUD-assisted households.1

On August 28, 2020, HUD published the MTW Expansion Operations Notice in the Federal

Register (FR-5994-N-05); the Operations Notice provides the general framework under which

MTW expansion PHAs will operate.1

HUD established a Research Advisory Committee (RAC) to consider which policy areas should be tested in the new MTW sites. The RAC was established under the rules of the Federal

Advisory Committee Act, and information related to the RAC’s deliberations is available online.2 Current studies of MTW expansion cohorts are investigating (1) how MTW flexibility affects small PHAs and the households they assist, (2) impacts of alternative rent calculations on

PHAs and assisted households, and (3) impacts of landlord incentives on the success of the housing choice voucher program. In consultation with the RAC, HUD chose to launch a new cohort of MTW expansion agencies to study the incorporation of asset building programs into

HUD housing assistance. HUD will allow two types of asset building programs in this cohort:

(1) programs intended to build savings accounts for assisted households and (2) programs intended to help assisted households build credit by reporting rent payments to credit bureaus.

HUD will use the most rigorous methods feasible for evaluation of the policy innovations studied in each MTW expansion cohort.

HUD expects to publish a Selection Notice in April of 2022 for the MTW expansion Asset

Building Cohort that will explain the process for applying and selecting PHAs into this cohort. It will also describe required elements of the asset building initiatives that participating PHAs must implement, while allowing PHAs flexibility in many details. Finally, the Selection Notice will state requirements that are necessary to ensure rigorous evaluation of the asset building initiatives. HUD anticipates knowing which PHAs will participate and the program type that each plans to implement by August 1, 2022, but no earlier.

Asset Building Cohort

The RAC discussed asset building at its meeting of October 28, 2021. Background information, discussion drafts, a recording of the meeting, and meeting minutes can be found here:

MTW Research Advisory Committee | HUD.gov / U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development (HUD). These materials provide context for this project, but do not directly address how to study asset building initiatives in the MTW expansion.

The innovations that HUD intends to study in the Asset Building Cohort are different from those being studied in the other MTW Expansion cohorts in that asset building programs are not core elements of HUD programs. In addition, asset building programs of the type to be studied are not unique to HUD housing assistance. For instance, several states have implemented opt-out child education accounts with seed funds. California recently implemented a law requiring certain landlords to offer the option of reporting rent to credit bureaus to their tenants. Colorado recently funded a pilot study of rent reporting for credit building. Such initiatives might offer interesting comparisons and the research team should be aware of the lessons being learned from them, as https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/ph/mtw/expansion/rac https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/programs/ph/mtw/expansion/rac well as aware of the possible implications for research designs in particular PHAs.

General Description of Work:

The Contractor shall produce one or more research designs to evaluate the programs implemented in the Asset Building Cohort, and, optionally, if it meets the government’s needs, a

Data Collection and Analysis Plan to guide the evaluation of the Asset Building Cohort. The

Contractor selected to carry out this evaluation must have expertise in evaluation of housing assistance and credit building programs (specifically programs to build savings and programs to build credit through rent reporting), rigorous experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation methods; collection and analysis of data pulled from credit reports; ways to measure financial well-being and financial knowledge; linking of administrative and survey data; complex, multi-sited research designs; managing an expert panel; and excellent oral and written communication skills.

Detailed descriptions of specific tasks are provided in Section 5 – Specific Tasks and

Deliverables of the attached Performance Work Statement.

Below are the characteristics of the MTW Expansion Asset-Building Cohort requirements:

• Demonstrable wide-ranging and deep knowledge and skills in the area of program evaluation methodology, including expert knowledge and skills in social experiments implemented across multiple sites and methodological approaches that use random assignment or quasi-experimental methods to create a valid or plausible counterfactual.

• Demonstrated experience in multi-site social experiments, RCT and QE research designs

• Demonstrated experience evaluating incentivized savings programs

• Demonstrated experience evaluating impacts of rent reporting on credit building

• Demonstrated experience using HUD administrative data for research

• Working knowledge of o incentivized savings programs for low-income households o rent payments to build credit among very low-income households o qualitative methods o HUD housing assistance programs o measurement of household spending and budgeting o measurement of financial well-being o General health and wellbeing o Low-income households’ use of traditional and nontraditional financial institutions o Credit reports, credit scores o Using information from credit reports in research

• Ability to facilitate meetings in a lead capacity for expert groups of various sizes and expertise

• Excellent communication skills, written and verbal

• Excellent project management skills

The tasks require a set of skill categories based on the following approximate breakdown:

Executive leaders 2%

Project management 19.5%

Senior technical staff 17%

Subject Matter Expert senior technical staff 14.5%

Subject Matter Expert technical staff 13.3%

Research Analyst/Administrative staff 15.6%

Total 100%

Contemplated report requirements:

• Management and Work Plan

• Monthly Reports

• White Paper synthesizing a literature review to establish the likely components, size, and scope needed for the asset building programs allowed in the MTW expansion (i.e., building savings and rent reporting to build credit) to have an observable impact on households.

• Design Memo

• Research Designs Report that will be a complete, stand-alone written product recommending the best research methodologies for the planned evaluation of the asset building cohort.

• Data Collection and Analysis Plan that will be a detailed technical blueprint, including data collection instruments, for implementation of the evaluation.

• All documents required for Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) Package and Common Rule compliance.

Contemplated dollar value of the project:

Potential dollar value is $460,325

Contemplated place of performance:

Contractor’s premises.