FY2016 TX-503 Continuum of Care:

Rating and Review Procedure and Results

Introduction:

Annually, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) holds a national competition for Continuum of Care (CoC) Program Funds. This competition brings funds into the Austin/Travis County to provide housing and services to individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. HUD released the Notice of Funding Availability for the 2016 CoC Program FR-6000-N-25 competition on June 28, 2016.

The Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO), the Collaborative Applicant for the Austin/Travis County Continuum of Care, is the lead agency responsible for completing and submitting the Consolidated Application for funding on behalf the CoC. The Consolidated Application consists of CoC Application, Priority Listing, and Project Applications.

ECHO is responsible for issuing a local competition to rank and review all project applications. To ensure transparency and fairness on a local level, on May 6, 2016, ECHO hosted an open bidders conference for any interested applicants prior to the release of the local RFP release-this meeting was open and attendance highly recommended for interested agencies not currently funded by the CoC program. On May 9, 2016, ECHO released the FY2016 Request for Projects for New and Renewal project applications with the deadline of June 3, 2016. This information was shared via the CTOSH email listserv, all ECHO mailing lists and the ECHO website

Renewal and new projects are reviewed, scored and ranked according to the process below.

For the FY16 competition, new projects may be created through reallocation and/or permanent housing bonus projects; CoCs may apply for permanent housing bonus projects up to 5 percent of the CoCs FPRN for the following types of new projects:

Through reallocation, CoCs may create the following types of new projects:

  • New PSH for chronically homeless individuals and families, including unaccompanied youth
  • New Rapid Rehousing for homeless individuals and families, including unaccompanied youth coming directly from the streets or emergency shelter or fleeing domestic violence
  • New dedicated HMIS
  • New SSO projects for coordinated entry

Through permanent housing bonus, CoCs may apply for the following types of new projects:

  • CoCs may create new permanent supportive housing projects that will serve 100 percent chronically homeless individuals and families, and
  • CoCs may create new rapid rehousing project that will serve homeless individuals and families coming directly from the streets or emergency shelters, and including persons fleeting domestic violence situations and other persons meeting the criteria of paragraph (4) of the definition of homelessness, which includes individuals or families that are fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking or other dangerous life-threatening conditions.

Process for Reviewing, Scoring, and Ranking:

The FY2016 CoC Program NOFA instructed Continuums to rank projects into two (2) tiers: Tier 1 is equal to 93 percent of the Annual Renewal Demand (ARD) and Tier 2 is equal to the difference between Tier 1 and the ARD plus the amount available for permanent housing bonus projects. At a national level, HUD will conditionally select project in Tier 1 from the highest scoring CoC to the lowest scoring CoC, provided that project applications pass both HUD’s eligibility and threshold review. HUD will award projects in Tier 2 based upon the CoC Application score, CoC project ranking, project type, and commitment to policy priorities.

Scoring Instructions and Components:

ECHO developed Scoring Instructions to measure performance and capacity using objective scoring criteria, including the HEARTH Performance Measures. See attached for Scoring Instructions. The Independent Review Team (IRT) was designed by the Ending Community Homeless Coalition Membership Council (CoC Board) to review and approve the FY2016 CoC project review process. The IRT membership which included eight members representing the City of Austin, Travis County, United Way for Greater Austin, the Austin Police Department as well as veterans, domestic violence, healthcare, and the faith community was approved on June 13th, 2016. Both renewals and new projects were scored according to the following categories:

  • Renewal Projects: existing renewing projects that have operated for a full 12-month period
  • First Time Renewal Projects: renewing projects that have not yet begun operating or have begun operating, but not yet completed a full 12-month period; and
  • New Projects: bonus or projects created through reallocation

In order to be considered, all projects must pass the Agency Threshold Criteria that included: (1) Application materials were received by the deadline, (2) the Project is consistent with the ECHO CoC Funding Priorities, Community Plan to End Homelessness and the Consolidated Plans for the requesting area (City of Austin, Travis County and/or Pflugerville, TX), (3) the agency does not have any outstanding HUD monitoring and/or OIG Audit findings, and (4) the Project complies with the request of the CoC interim rule (24 CFR part 578), including, but not limited to accepting referrals from the Coordinated Assessment Process (CAP), participation in the annual Point in Time Count, Housing Inventory, and CoC Workgroup in addition to an active SAMS registration and DUNS number and participation in the CoC HMIS ( or equivalent data management system for Domestic Violence Providers Only)

The IRT primary responsibility is to (1) objectively score and rank all new and renewal project narrative applications and agency presentations (2) submit recommendation of project priority for Tier 1 and Tier 2, and (3) IRT Chair must report to ECHO Membership Council for final ranking decision. Each renewal project application includes and Performance Scorecard that is factored into the final overall score of each application and considered for ranking position.

Scoring Components (see attached for sample):

  • 5% Agency Threshold Component ensured compliance with HUD organizational recommendations and HMIS implementation
  • 35% Project Narrative Component assessed project’s compliance with best practices to end homelessness such as client choice, housing type and services match client need, transit access, access to healthcare, availability of services to increase income, LOCCS drawdowns, and participation in community planning.
  • 55% Performance Scorecard measured system performance measures, alignment with Housing First, and data timeliness and quality.

Ranking Policies:

  1. HUD’s Policy Priorities:
  • Create a systemic response to homelessness
  • Strategically allocate resources
  • End chronic homelessness (2017)
  • End family homelessness (2020)
  • End youth homelessness (2020)
  • End veteran homelessness (2016)
  • Use a housing first approach
  1. Overall Project Performance: renewal projects will be ranked by project performance. If a project has poor performance or there are other justifications for ranking the project lower based (history of not expending 100% of funding, etc), project will be ranked accordingly and provided technical assistance from CoC staff to improve lower performance and/or discuss voluntary reallocation of the project funding (or part of project funding).
  1. New Projects (Bonus and Reallocation) will be ranked lower than renewal projects, unless the IRT determines the project meets both HUD priorities and local needs by improving the CoC’s outcomes and reducing homelessness more effectively than a renewal project(s).

For FY2016 competition, the IRT and Membership Council recommended a reallocation the portion of(4) historically under-expending renewal projects to the total of $36,983. On a meeting on July 21, 2016, the 4 impacted agencies voluntarily reallocated the by the following breakdown:

  • Caritas of Austin-$20,000
  • Housing Authority of the City of Austin-$5,661
  • Housing Authority of Travis County-$5,661
  • Front Steps-$5,661

The reallocated funds were made available to the reallocation applicant budget.

Project Ranking and Approval:

The Independent Review Team (IRT) ranked projects and made the following project priority recommendations to the ECHO Membership Council, which has the authority to approve or reject the project ranking recommendation, on July 21, 2016. All new and renewal projects were approved for the Consolidated Application with feedback for HUD application submission. The Membership Council approved the Project Priority Ranking on August 10, 2016.

Rank / New or Renewal / Project Type / Organization / 2016 Request
1 / Renewal / HMIS / Ending Community Homelessness Coalition / $150,234
2 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Green Doors / $77,101
3 / Renewal / Transitional Housing / SafePlace / $624,678
4 / Renewal / PH-RRH / Salvation Army / $560,762
5 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Housing Authority Travis County / $850,539
6 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Caritas of Austin / $223,373
7 / Renewal / PH-PSH / ATCIC / $376,668
8 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Front Steps / $224,965
9 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Caritas of Austin / $686,445
10 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Front Steps / $174,215
11 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Housing Authority City of Austin / $608,898
12 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Caritas of Austin / $348,653
13 / Renewal / PH-PSH / Caritas of Austin / $228,024
TIER 1 SUBTOTAL / $5,134,555
14 / REALLOCATION / PH-RRH / LifeWorks / $386,472
15 / NEW / PH-PSH / HACA/ATCIC / $275,227.00
TIER 2 SUBTOTAL / $661,699
TOTAL / $5,796,254

APPEALS:

The CoC must notify project applicants, in writing outside of e-snaps, of any rejected FY 2016 project applications no later than 15 days before the application deadline to allow any eligible project applicant(s) that attempted to participate in the CoC’s planning process and believe they were denied the right to participate in the CoC process in a reasonable manner time to appeal the CoC’s decision to HUD as a Solo Applicant (see Section X.C. of the FY 2016 CoC Program Competition NOFA for more information on Solo Applicants

No projects submitted issued an appeal regarding the FY2016 project application decision for TX-503.

APPENDIX:

ECHO 2016 Continuum of Care Competition Timeline: Local and Federal

May 6, 2016FY2016 HUD CoC Local Competition-Bidder’s Conference for New and Renewal CoC funded projects

May 9, 2016ECHO-Collaborative Applicant for TX-503 Austin/Travis County Release RFP for FY2016 CoC Local Competition

June 3, 2016Local 2016 HUD CoC RFP Due

June 3, 2016Independent Review Team Orientation

June 14, 2016Comprehensive RFP Application Rating and Review by IRT

June 21, 2016New and Renewal Project Applicant Agency Presentations to IRT

June 28, 2016Project Approval, Rating and Review Recommendation Finalized by IRT

June 30, 2016HUD 2016 HUD Continuum of Care Program NOFA posted on

July 6, 2016HUD 2016 HUD Continuum of Care Program NOFA Review

July 13, 2016IRT Chair Presentation of Rating and Review-Ranking Recommendations to CoC Board aka “Membership Council”

Aug 5, 2016Renewal and New Projects due to Collaborative Applicant in ESNAPS

Aug 10, 2016Project Priority Ranking Decision Voted by Membership Council

Aug 12, 2016CoC Collaborative Applicant to notify all project applicants of inclusion or rejection for CoC Consolidated Application submission

Sept 14, 2016Final HUD CoC Collaborative Application and Project Priority Ranking due to HUD via ESNAPS 6:59PM CST

OTHER ATTACHMENTS

  1. Agency Threshold Application
  2. Renewal Application-Permanent Housing
  3. New Project Application-Permanent Housing
  4. Performance Scorecard
  5. Reallocation Policy and Procedure
  6. Final IRT Memo to the Membership Council

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