Rural Housing Preservation Grants

To assist very low- and low-income rural residents individual homeowners, rental property owners (single/multi-unit) or by providing the consumer cooperative housing projects (co-ops) the necessary assistance to repair or rehabilitate their dwellings

Must be a State or political subdivision, public nonprofit corporation, Indian tribal corporations, authorized to receive and administer housing preservation grants, private nonprofit corporation, or a consortium of such eligible entities. Applicants must provide assistance under this program to persons residing in eligible rural areas available online at eligbility.sc.egov.usda.gov. Assistance is authorized for eligible applicants in the United States, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and the territories and possessions of the United States.

Very low and low-income rural individuals and families who are homeowners and need resources to bring their housing up to code standards, rental property owners, or co-ops.

Applicants must have the financial, legal, administrative, and operational capacity to carry out the objectives of the program by having experience in rural housing rehabilitation.

Organizations may not use more than 20 percent of the Housing Preservation Grant funds for program administration purposes, such as to hire the personnel to carry out a project of housing rehabilitation to meet the needs of very low and low- income persons in rural areas; to pay necessary and reasonable office and administrative expenses; and to pay reasonable fees for training of organization personnel. The majority of funds must be used for loans, grants or other assistance on individual homes, homeowners, rental properties or co-ops to pay any part of the cost for repair or rehabilitation of structures; funds may not be used to hire personnel to perform construction or to pay any debts, expenses or costs other than previously outlined and approved in the project application.

Grants are made for up to a 2-year period. Agency approval is required for grant extensions.

The Section 533 program is awarded through a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) announced in the Federal Register.

Projects must provide a feasible repair rehabilitation program and serve areas with a concentration of substandard housing and very low and low-income persons. In addition, the following criteria will be considered in the selection of grant recipients. Each preapplication and its accompanying statement of activities will be evaluated on: (1) The percentage of very low-income persons assisted; (2) the percentage of use of HPG funds to total cost of housing preservation; (3) the applicant's administrative capacity and experience in (i) housing rehabilitation or weatherization, (ii) assisting very low and low-income persons attain housing assistance and (iii) prior programs no outstanding audits findings; (4) the proposed program will be undertaken in non-Metropolitan Statistical Areas identified by Rural Development as having populations below 10,000 or in remote parts of other rural areas, (i.e., rural areas contained in Metropolitan Statistical Areas with less than 5,000 population); (5) the program will minimize the use of grant funds for administrative purposes, i.e., less than 20 percent of grant funds; (6) the program will alleviate overcrowding in rural residences inhabited by very low and low-income families; and (7) if an existing grantee has met the objectives of its current grant.

Award is made by the Rural Development State Director.

Notice of action taken on preapplications will be generally within 60 days of final date of acceptance of preapplication.

Applicants may apply for an additional HPG grant when they have achieved or nearly achieved the goals established for the previous or existing grant. The grantee must file a preapplication for the current fiscal year which will be processed and compared under the project selection criteria to others submitted at that time.

Applicants may request reconsideration on the basis of pertinent facts concerning their application within 30 days of notification of action taken on the preapplication or application.