Grant Writing Confidential

HUD just issued the FY 2010 NOFA (Notice of Funding Availability, which is HUD-speak for RFP) for the Lead-Based Paint Hazard Control Program (LBPHC) program (the fiscal year ends in less than a month, but better late than never). We’ve written six funded LBPHC grants over the years and are very familiar with the program, which is a great competitive grant opportunity for cities. Having discussed it with many potential and actual clients, I know, however, that LBPHC confuses lots of city officials.

The program is actually very simple, as long as you understand the basic concept of it, which is to fund the remediation (not necessarily removal) of lead-based paint in privately owned housing occupied by low-income folks. This program confuses applicants, who are typically cities, since they have trouble figuring out how to efficiently spend the grant funds, which usually works out to about $15,000 per unit remediated. Congress, meanwhile, keeps funding the program despite lead-based paint being a long-disused product—it’s been banned since 1978. Lead-based paint remains in older housing mostly because homeowners and landlords simply don’t remove it or don’t cover it up correctly. The lead-based problems seem to be a combination of lack of interest and lack of money. It can’t be a lack of knowledge because HUD has run endless TV and radio PSAs on the subject for years and every city in America instructs its inspectors to look for lead hazards.

To make a LBPHC program work, it is best for the applicant city to propose using the LBPHC funds in conjunction with their housing rehabilitation program. Virtually every city in America has had some form of housing rehab program since the Nixon administration, using a combination of HUD HOME formula grants, CDBG entitlements, state funds or who knows what. The rehab programs usually entice homeowners and landlords to fix up the housing units by offering small grants for the very low-income (below 50% of area median income or “AMI”) and subsidized loans for low-income and moderate-income (50% to 120% of AMI, depending on the jurisdiction).

For the moment, disregard the reality that such grants and loans have been available for over 40 years, meaning that many eligible housing units have already been rehabbed, and the whole foreclosure/sub-prime mortgage mess, which has created incredible turmoil in housing markets. The real problem is invariably that the City of Owatonna wants Mrs. Smith the homeowner to fix code violations, remediate lead paint, etc., while Mrs. Jones wants granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The result is that the city has trouble spending its rehab funds because the Mrs. Smiths of the world don’t want to borrow money to do things that won’t impress their friends and neighbors, particularly when they are already upside down in their mortgage.

What to do? Easy. The City gets a LBPHC grant and bungie cords it to their existing rehab program. Now Mrs. Smith can get $15,000 or so in LBPHC sub-grant funds to remediate the lead hazards that the city inspector wants her to do and can use the rehab loan to buy her granite countertops. In other words, the lead remediation grant can be used to entice Mrs. Smith to take the rehab loan. Now everyone is happy, including the local contractors who have some work while waiting around for the economy to improve. As long as a city does not try to run LBPHC as a standalone program, but instead combines it with their rehab effort, HUD will love it and so will everyone in town. It’s remarkable to me how many calls I’ve had over the years from city officials who do not get this idea until I explain it. The ones who follow our direction usually get funded and have great success with the program.

Now you know how to structure a LBPHC grant program. All you have to do is write it in response to the fanatically complex HUD NOFA and get it submitted with all of the myriad of attachments by the October 15 deadline.