Metro FTP Site Has Materials Used for Their HUD Sustainability Grant Pre Application Submission.

In response to my request Metro has provided me with a FTP link to materials associated with their recently submitted $5 million pre application for a HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning grant. 

You can access the Metro FTP site HERE; within the folder at this URL you will also see an attachments folder with multiple background documents.  I found attachments L HERE and HERE with background about the Portland Pulse indicators project to be the most interesting of the attachments.[Note that many of these materials are in MS Word format].

Not in the FTP folder, but sent to me by Metro is the the draft MOU HERE which would need to be signed by participants if Metro is invited to submit the full application. This document provides the most detail about the currently planned activities, but those activities are subject to change prior to submission of a formal application.

Observations on Current Materials: 

• Grant application area does NOT include Clark County. 
• One of planned activities is a Regional Analysis Impediments to Fair Housing

Other notable planned activities [from the draft MOU]: 

• Voucher Cooperation: Development of a program to link administration of low income rental assistance to workforce training programs...and the portability of rent assistance vouchers between counties.
  
  Opportunity Mapping: The region is currently developing an initial approach to opportunity mapping to better depict access to opportunity relative to the concentration of different demographics
  • Establishing on-going roles and responsibilities for keeping the data current and expanding the quality or coverage of data that is currently inadequate.
  • Interpreting the conclusions that can be reached from the data to identify the key areas of inadequate access to opportunity that should be addressed.
  • Establishing policy on the application of opportunity mapping to decision-making related to provision of public facilities and services.
  • Providing tutorials and web-based access to facilitate increased public access and facilitate application of the opportunity mapping to public and private decision-making

My understanding is that if invited to apply by HUD after review of the pre application submission the Metro complete grant application, with more materials, would be submitted close to the end of this year. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

PolicyLink Guide on Incorporating Equity in 2011 Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Applications.

Document is HERE; page 22 includes link HERE to a Washington County/PSU "Field Work Review of Fair Housing Choice".

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Issues Advance Notice of Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant NOFA.

HUD PR is HERE. 

Link within PR will [eventually] get you to "Program " Section of NOFA HERE , that has specifics that relate to this program. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Clackamas County Chair Resigns to Take Kitzhaber Transportation/Sustainability Post.

Oregonian has story HERE.   (Doesn't anybody serve out their term in office any more?). 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Estacada Elderly 202 Project Gets $1 Million for Green Retrofit.

Estacada News story about Volunteers of American 66 unit Whispering Pines project is HERE. Story says two other Oregon projects receive funding under same program:

REACH Community Development received $258,426 for the Powell Boulevard Apartments in Portland, and the Salem Housing Authority secured a $730,092 grant for the Englewood East complex.

HUD website with more information about this program is HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Metro Misses Out on HUD Sustainable Communities Planning Grant; Lane Council of Governments and two Washington State Planning Councils Receive Combined $7.9 Million.

HUD PR is HERE. List of award finalists is HERE.

Seattle Times news story is HERE. $6.5 million total to two agencies/areas.

Sustainable Business Oregon Lane Council of Governments story is HERE.  Lane Council will receive $1.4 million.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Housing Land Advocates PR/Agenda for Thursday October 7th Conference in Salem: Transportation and Affordable Housing Intersection.

PR is HERE; Agenda and registration form can be found HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Housing Land Advocates Oct 7th Conference in Salem on Intersection of Transportation and AFFORDABLE Housing.

The Road Home: The Intersection of Transportation and Affordable Housing
 

Thursday, October 7, 2010. Willamette University College of Law, Salem.
 

Sponsored by Housing Land Advocates, AARP and Willamette University College of Law.

Agenda and registration information available HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Rail-Volution Annual Meeting in Portland October 18-21.

Main page, including registration is HERE. 

Schedule is HERE; Brochure is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

As Submitted, Portland Metro's Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant Application.

I am pleased that Metro staff promptly responded to my request and provided the complete application materials sent to HUD for the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant.

The process of putting together the 20+ exhibits, let alone the coordination required to bring parties together, must have been substantial and I commend Metro and other parties for the effort required and the commitments they made. 

While I will save substantive comments for a future post, I wanted to make these documents available ASAP to others. 

I have created and uploaded a zip file with all of the 20+ documents (Documents are in MS Word, PowerPoint, or Excel formats). Once opened you will see files are in four different folders:  Applicant Information, Budget, Project Narrative, and Rating Factor Forms. 

Zipped file can be downloaded HERE. (You won't want to open the zip file in your browser, instead right click the file link and save it to your PC and after downloading then double click the downloaded file to open it).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

One Portland Competitor for Livable Communities Planning Grant: 2 States, 25 Counties.

Interesting news item HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Metro Transporation Policy Group Agenda Includes TIGER II Grant Application Endorsements.

TPAC meeting is on Friday July 30th.

Agenda package HERE includes recommended endorsement of 6 TIGER II grant applications (see pages 13-19 for details--I failed to see ANY housing related activity in the endorsement letters): 

1. Sunrise Corridor – Hwy 212: Hwy 224 to 162nd Ave., Sunrise Corridor Multiuse Path: Lawnfield to Hwy 212 and I-205 Multiuse Path to Hwy 212
2. Electric Vehicle Corridor Connectivity
3. NW Graham Road Reconstruction and NW Swigert Way Extension
4. I-5 Corridor Transit
5. Sellwood Bridge Replacement
6. Southeast Corridor Project: Connecting Communities

Agenda includes HUD sustainability grant Coop Agreement that is also on the July 28th MPAC agenda.  (see prior post HERE).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

MPAC July 28th Agenda Packet Includes HUD Sustainability Coop Agreement.

Meeting packet is HERE, page 9-13 has the draft agreement (Housing Equity and Opportunity Strategy for the Portland Metropolitan Region).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Washington County Board Presentation on HUD Sustainable Community Grant NOFA.

The Washington County Board of Commissioners recently received a briefing on the HUD Sustainable Housing NOFA's; I have posted that presentation (as a PDF file) HERE. 

Provides a good summary of current thinking on content of application,which is due to HUD in mid August.  (23rd if I recall correctly).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Sustainbility NOFA Webcast Time Confirmed, 12-1:30 PDT MONDAY July 19th.

HUD corrected prior error and has posted correct time on their web cast schedule HERE.

HUD Sustainable Communities NOFA Changes.

Wow, this is getting more screwed up by the day....

I got an email notifying me of changes in the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant NOFA; full text of that message  is pasted below. 

However after downloading the form again, numerous links continue to NOT work AND the links for data for one of the factors, Segregation by County, has disappeared. (Is that the "removal of one date point" referred to in the message, and if so how does that affect rating point distribution?).

The Rating Factor form has minor corrections, only in Rating Factor 2; for spelling, labels and the removal of one data point for which it turns out data will not be available in time for the grant deadline.    The modification only affects the Instructions Download; the Application Package does NOT have to be downloaded again.

You can download the new application package from http://apply07.grants.gov/apply/opportunities/packages/oppFR-5396-N-03-cfda14.703-cidSCRPG-03.pdf

The instructions for applying for this grant opportunity have also changed.  You can download the new instructions from http://apply07.grants.gov/apply/opportunities/instructions/oppFR-5396-N-03-cfda14.703-cidSCRPG-03-instructions.zip

Hopefully resolution of these problems will be discussed in the upcoming NOFA  web cast next week. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Sustainable Communities NOFA Webcast Date AND Time Change?

HUD has published two different times for the webcast for the Sustainable Communities web cast. As I originally posted the time was 12-1:30 PDT MONDAY July 19th; but now the HUD web cast schedule HERE shows a time of 11-12 PDT on THURSDAY July 22nd!.

I have sent email requesting clarification and will update this post IF I get clarification; if I don't get clarification, I would double check the web cast schedule link again on Monday to see if in fact there is a web cast at 12 PDT. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Monday July 19th HUD Sustainability NOFA Webcasts.

Scheduled time is 12 to 1:30 PDT. 

Appears to include both Community Challenge and Regional Planning grants. Details should appear soon on HUD webcast schedule page HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Releasing MORE Data Sources for Regional Sustainable Communities Planning Grant.

HUD is sure taking a long time to release data sources to be used to complete the rating form required for the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant NOFA. 

The data page for the rating form can be found HERE; check often as this page is supposed to be updated in the future--some new items were added as recently as this morning.  

Some Factors Will Require Use of "Locally Collected" Data Source:

One example: Data for "Factor 5.1 Availability of Subsidized Housing within 2 Miles of the Region’s 5 Largest Employment Centers" is to be "locally collected". [I have suggested way of doing that, if anyone is interested].

NO HUD Webcast Currently Scheduled

It sure seems like additional guidance on completing the form will be required, however I have yet to see a webcast scheduled for this NOFA, you can check HUD webcast schedules HERE. 

The main HUD web page for this NOFA is HERE. 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

HUD Regional Sustainable Communities NOFA Material, Including Form Data, Continues to Be Updated.

HUD continues to add stuff to the Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant NOFA web page. 

Regional Planning Grant web page HERE has adds for FAQ's, side by side comparisons with Community Challenge Grant and TIGER II NOFA, a July 1 Tiger II webinar, and a link to data necessary to complete the rating form that is part of the Regional Planning Grant NOFA. 

Rating form data as of early Wednesday AM is only partially complete, so also keep looking for revisions to form data web page HERE for posting of additional data necessary to complete the rating form. (Posting of a revised rating form seems also likely at some point, as links within current form are broken).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.