Generally, on an annual basis, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires each Continuum of Care (CoC) to competitively apply for funding under the CoC Program Competition in response to a CoC Program Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). The complete CoC Consolidated Application includes the CoC application and project applications for: new permanent housing projects, new projects created through reallocation, renewal projects, CoC Planning projects and Unified Funding Agency (UFA) costs.
This year the grant competition was released on August 18th, 2021, reintroducing a competitive application process in follow up to a noncompetitive FY 2020 CoC Program NOFA. A PDF of the FY 2021 NOFO announcement is available by clicking HERE and published on grants.gov. This competition brings funds into both the City and County of Milwaukee to provide housing and supportive services to individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. All those interested in applying for CoC funding are advised to read the full FY 2021 NOFO announcement, follow the timeline below, carefully review resources including the applicable project application detailed instructions and navigational guides and subscribe to the Milwaukee CoC enewsletter for competition news. The competitive application requires each local Continuum of Care to rank, score, and select new and renewal projects based on objective project performance and current community needs. The CoC must identify and describe the processes used for ranking, scoring, and selecting eligible projects in a fair, transparent, and impartial manner, inclusive of a public notification which lists the CoC’s final determination on funded projects. The Milwaukee Continuum of Care accepts and considers applications for eligible projects from eligible applicants that have not been previously funded by the CoC program.
In the competition, the CoC has the option to re-allocate funds from CoC renewal projects to fund new projects, and to create a new project through the bonus competition. New funding opportunities created through re-allocation, bonus, or DV bonus will only be available as stated in the NOFO document. This may change per competition. This year, the NOFO states CoCs may submit new projects created through reallocation, CoC Bonus, or a combination of reallocation and CoC Bonus, new Domestic Violence Bonus projects, CoC planning project, and if applicable, Unified Funding Applicant Costs project.
Eligible new project types for funding available through reallocation or bonus (including Domestic Violence bonus) include the following project types per the FY 2021 NOFO:
- Permanent Supportive Housing projects that meet the requirements of DedicatedPLUS as defined in Section III.B.2.g of this year’s NOFO in which case all units funded by the project must be used to serve program participants who meet the qualifications for DedicatedPLUS; new permanent supportive housing projects serving persons experiencing chronic homelessness at the time they initially enroll in the project
- New project applications created through reallocation or the CoC Bonus for Permanent Supportive Housing or Rapid Rehousing that utilize housing vouchers and healthcare provided through an array of healthcare services providers formally partnering with the CoC applicant and leveraging healthcare resources to help individuals and families experiencing homelessness
- New Permanent Housing-Rapid Rehousing, Joint Temporary Housing and Rapid Rehousing, and Coordinated SSO projects may serve persons who qualify as homeless under paragraphs (1), (2), or (4) of 24 CFR 578.3. Additionally, these projects may serve persons who qualify as homeless under paragraph (3) of 24 CFR 578.3 if the CoC is approved to serve persons in paragraph (3). Milwaukee CoC is not approved to serve persons in paragraph 3 of 24 CFR 578.3
- New projects for dedicated HMIS
CoC Competition questions and completed applications may be sent to City staff via email – Rafael Acevedo ( racevedo@milwaukee.gov ) and Claire Shanahan ( cshana@milwaukee.gov )
New project applicants are advised to review eSNAPS guides to learn how to register their organization for eSNAPS and navigate eSNAPS:
- https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/Project-Applicant-Profile-Navigational-Guide.pdf (see pages 11-15 for new organization registration information)
- https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/CPD/documents/FY-2021-Accessing-the-Project-Application.pdf
Milwaukee CoC’s FY2021 NOFO Submission Timeline is as follows:
FY 2021 NOFO Submission
Milwaukee CoC
Timeline
- August 18th, 2021: CoC Competition Begins
- August 30th, 2021: City asks agencies with renewal projects to send City notice if they will voluntarily reallocate their funding during the FY 2021 CoC Program Competition. Notice due via email to City of Milwaukee staff (Rafael Acevedo, racevedo@milwaukee.gov and Claire Shanahan, cshana@milwaukee.gov) by end of business day – 4:45 PM September 7th, 2021.
- September 3rd, 2021: Milwaukee CoC FY 2021 local competition timeline posted for public viewing on the CoC website, distributed through CoC enewsletter, and shared on Facebook page @milwaukeecoc
- September 7th, 2021: Notice to voluntarily reallocate renewal project funding (either partial or full funding) due via email to City of Milwaukee staff (Rafael Acevedo, racevedo@milwaukee.gov and Claire Shanahan, cshana@milwaukee.gov) today by end of business day – 4:45 PM, indicating name of project(s) affected by funding reallocation, total amount of funding to be reallocated and from which budget line item(s) funding will be reallocated.
- September 10th, 2021: Intent to Apply application form templates in Word for new projects including applications for new Domestic Violence bonus projects, and Intent to Apply application form templates for renewal projects in Word are posted for public viewing on the CoC website, distributed through CoC enewsletter, and shared on Facebook page @milwaukeecoc . Renewal project applicants are expected to have begun working on renewal project applications in eSNAPS on or by this date. FY 2021 ranking and reallocation policy draft shared on CoC website, enewsletter and Facebook page with invitation for comments from the public
- September 15th, 2021: Signed, completed, dated conflict of interest declaration forms are due from all Board members by 4:45 PM.
- September 16th, 2021: CoC board of directors meets and is debriefed on the FY 2021 NOFA – reviews and approves renewal project scoring tool, new project scoring tool templates including the scoring tool template for new DV bonus projects, FY 2021 rating, ranking and reallocation policy. The board approved the project application scoring summary documents for bonus projects, domestic violence bonus projects, renewal projects; and the Milwaukee CoC FY 2021 Application Rating, Reallocation, Ranking Policy documents without changes on this date.
- September 2oth, 2021: NOFA Committee meets, discusses board decisions from September 16th.
- October 1st, 2021: Final completed renewal project application forms (Intent to Apply Word document forms) including narrative section for board subcommittee and PDF export of renewal project applications in eSNAPS due via email to City staff Rafael Acevedo and Claire Shanahan by 4:45 PM (end of business day).
- October 1st – October 5th, 2021: City staff reviews completed Intent to Apply Word document renewal project application forms and PDF exports of renewal project applications in eSNAPS
- October 7th, 2021: New project application including new project applications for the domestic violence bonus forms in Word document, and PDF exports of new project applications in eSNAPS due to the City via email by 4:45 PM (end of business day).
- October 7th – October 8th, 2021: City staff reviews completed Intent to Apply Word document forms for new project applications and PDF exports of new project applications in eSNAPS
- October 11th, 2021: Rank and review board subcommittee meets, confirms scoring accuracy, assigns scores by rubric to narrative questions, average of narrative questions taken to assign final score for narrative section. Projects are ranked by raw score and according to CoC rating, ranking and reallocation policy.
- October 12th, 2021: City staff sends approval/denial determination, final scores and appeal forms to all project applicants via email.
- October 14th, 2021: Project appeal forms due to City of Milwaukee staff by 4:45 PM (end of business day)
- October 15th, 2021: Project appeals board subcommittee meets as needed, reviews and votes on merit of project scoring appeals. Project ranking finalized.
- October 19th, 2021: Milwaukee CoC board of directors meets to vote on the final ranked list of all CoC projects.
- Final ranked list of all Milwaukee CoC projects in FY 2021 CoC Competition available by clicking HERE
- October 27th, 2021: Deadline to complete corrections to all renewal and new project applications in eSNAPS
- November 8th, 2021: Priority listing of ranked projects eSNAPS PDF export shared with NOFA workgroup and new project applicants for review by 4:45 PM
- November 10th, 2021: PDF export of CoC Consolidated application, including priority listing given final review by NOFA workgroup
- November 12th, 2021: Accepted updates to CoC application content (narrative responses tables, attachments) are completed by City staff and confirmed via email as needed. CoC consolidated application is submitted to HUD. Esnaps submission confirmation, priority listing screens with date/time stamp recorded and saved by City staff. All parts of the CoC Consolidated Application, including the CoC Application attachments and the Priority Listing are posted and shared on the Milwaukee CoC FY 21 CoC Competition web page on this date.
–FY 2021 CoC Application with Attachments
-FY 2021 CoC Priority Listing (all projects accepted, ranked where required, or rejected) - November 16th, 2021: HUD deadline for CoC Consolidated Application submission in eSNAPS – due by 7:00 PM Central Standard Time.