U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Community Compass Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program
The Community Compass Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Program (Community Compass) is designed to help the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) customers navigate complex housing and community development challenges by equipping them with the knowledge, skills, tools, capacity, and systems to implement HUD programs and policies successfully and be more effective stewards of HUD funding. The goal of Community Compass is to empower communities by providing effective technical assistance and capacity building so that successful program implementation is sustained over the long term.
Recognizing that HUD’s customers often interact with a variety of HUD programs as they deliver housing or community development services, Community Compass brings together technical assistance investments from across HUD program offices, including the offices of Community Planning and Development, Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, Housing, and Public and Indian Housing. This cross-funding approach allows technical assistance to address the needs of grantees and subgrantees across multiple HUD programs, often within the same engagement, as well as address cross-agency issues. Applicants are encouraged to procure subcontractors and consultants to demonstrate expertise across a wide variety of HUD programs, as well as in specific skill and policy areas. Community Compass is centrally managed by HUD Headquarters with involvement of the HUD Regional, Field, and Area Offices.
HUD expects to focus technical assistance (TA) efforts and funding in the categories below (see the solicitation for details regarding specific programs and topics and TA funding sources for each category):
- Affordable housing, mixed finance, and homeownership
- Community and economic development and disaster resilience
- Homelessness
- Homelessness National Data Analysis Project
- Youth homelessness
- Public housing operations and programs
- Native American housing and community development
- Supportive housing and services
- Preservation tenant participation and capacity building
- Policy development and research
- Fair energy and environment, and other cross-cutting requirements
HUD recognizes that there is often overlap among these categories, programs, and topics, and applicants are encouraged to demonstrate experience working across categories, as applicable. Additionally, TA assignments may not be limited to the programs and topics listed. HUD may direct successful applicants to provide TA related to other HUD programmatic or policy areas based on emerging priorities and the identified needs of HUD’s customers.
In order to assist HUD grantees, subrecipients, or other HUD customers, successful applicants may be tasked to deliver TA using any of the following eligible activities or modalities:
- Needs assessments
- Direct TA and capacity building engagements
- Develop and maintain tools and products
- Self-directed and group learning
- Knowledge management
- Data analysis, reporting, and performance measurement
- Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act (NAHASDA) allocation formula administration and negotiated rule making and consolation support
Amount: Approximately $58,000,000 is available to support up to 20 awards, ranging from $250,000-$20,000,000 per project period. The solicitation provides estimates by TA funding area for minimum and maximum grant ranges.
Awards are in the form of a cooperative agreement. HUD will have significant involvement in the management of the cooperative agreement throughout the period of performance of the award. HUD will assign work to successful applicants on a demand-response basis.
Eligibility: State governments; county governments; city or township governments; special district governments; public and state controlled institutions of higher education; Native American tribal governments; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments); nonprofits with or without a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS; private institutions of higher education; for profit organizations; and small businesses.
In addition to the list above, eligible applicants include:
- NAHASDA-eligible Indian tribes as defined in the NAHASDA; tribally designated housing entities (TDHEs) as defined in the NAHASDA; and national or regional organizations representing Native American housing interests
- Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), Councils of Government (COGs), or other regional planning entities
- For MAHRA TA, tenant groups as defined at Section 514 of the MAHRA
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