Continuum of Care (COC)

The Ranking & Review Committee met on 09/08/2022 & 09/09/2022 to review applications and project ranking. Our Ranking & Review Committee was comprised of a diverse set of 14 reviewers from across the CoC’s geography. With the HUD requirement of 95% of the CoC’s Annual Renewal Demand in Tier 1 and 5% in Tier 2, this means$171, 494 of our renewal demand must be placed in Tier 2. This left the committee with the difficult work of determining what 5% of our CoC funding is at risk of cuts from HUD in the FY2022 CoC NOFO competition. The initial scoring factored in financial compliance, project performance based on Annual Performance reports, and review of CoC Supplemental Applications that detailed policies on domestic violence policies, racial equity, cultural responsiveness, and evidence-based practices for all applicants. After the initial score-based ranking was compiled, Bois Forte Tribal Nation’s New Moon project, AEOA’s Bill’s House Project, and Range Mental Health Center’s Ivy Manor Project all fell completely in Tier 2. Additionally, a portion of CHUM’s Rapid Rehousing Project fell in Tier 2.  The CoC & the members of the Ranking & review Committee acknowledge that these are all essential, life-saving services across our CoC and that it is difficult to put any of them at risk of losing funding in final review with HUD.

 

Given the high number of Northern St. Louis County Projects in Tier 2, the committee discussed many scenarios of being able to protect some of this funding. Ultimately, the committee chose to reorder the initial project ranking to protect the Bois Forte New Moon Permanent Supportive Housing project from cuts. This decision was made 1) to honor tribal sovereignty and protect our only tribally funded CoC project, 2) to protect a key rural resource for families experiencing homelessness, 3) to ensure we continue to support culturally relevant and specific programming in alignment with our CoC funding priorities and the clear need shown in racial disparities in our CoC, 4)  Bois Forte scored competitively with other grants and was much closer to Tier 1 then any of the other projects falling in Tier 2, and 5) finally to minimize impact on other higher scoring projects. The committee discussed many ways to protect funding for AEOA’s Bill’s House, CHUM’s Rapid Rehousing Project, and RMHC’s Ivy Manor project, but ultimately determined that any additional reordering would have posed too much funding burden on higher scoring projects. This decision does put more of CHUM’s Rapid Rehousing funding into Tier 2, but not the entire project. We acknowledge this puts CHUM at risk for cuts to the Rapid Rehousing project and hope that by straddling Tier 1 & Tier 2 with this project, we will protect as much funding as possible for CHUM as well. Despite the efforts to preserve as much funding as possible, AEOA’s Bill’s House & RMHC’s Ivy Manor Project still fell completely below Tier 2 and are also at risk of cuts in final review from HUD.

 

Please note that HUD required 5% of our Annual Renewal Demand to fall into Tier 2 this year. Tier 2 funds are not protected and could see cuts from HUD. This was not decision reached lightly and the CoC is committed to working with any projects that see funding cuts to preserve services as much as possibly with other funding streams and creative collaboration.

On Thursday, August 11th, 2022, St. Louis County Continuum of Care (MN-509) will host a public information session on the FY2022 HUD CoC Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) process. This session will be hosted via Microsoft Teams and is open to the public (meeting details below). This session will provide details on the local grant competition for new and renewal funds and provide information about HUD funding priorities. If you are unable to attend this session, but would still like to receive information on this funding opportunity, please contact St. Louis County Continuum of Care Coordinator, Courtney Cochran (she/her) at cochranc@StLouisCountyMN.gov. Please also reach out to Courtney with any questions on this session. Meeting Details: Thursday, July 14^th from 9am to 10:30am via Microsoft Teams

The Duluth/St. Louis County CoC (Mn-509) Ranking & Review Committee met on 09/26/2022 to review Special NOFO application and we had an amazing slate of applications. However, our CoC proposals came in at $550,976 over the maximum amount ($4,129,591) allowed by HUD in our budget. In review, any project with a proposed budget of $250,000 or less would not be feasible with a smaller budget. The committee reviewed each budget in detail and instead of choosing to reduce the lowest scoring project(s) by that amount, we are looking at the highest budget projects and asking you all to trim your budgets to help get us below this line. Please note that if this is not the approach we choose as CoC, the alternative would be to lower the budget of the lowest scoring project by $550,976. At this point, the lowest scoring project is Salvation Army’s Plover Place project, which would likely not be feasible with this large of a cut from the proposed budget. We do not rank Coordinated Entry, HMIS, or CoC Planning grants as we are required to fund these components of our CoC systems to keep the system running. The Ranking & review Committee is asking all project from the Stepping On Up team to work together to collectively trim a total $550,976 from the budgets of their projects. These projects also have the highest proposed budgets in our Special NOFO grant competition. This includes: CHUM’s Stepping On Up, Lutheran Social Services’ Walkways, Human Development Center’s Unsheltered Outreach, and Salvation Army’s Plover Place projects. Knowing that these agencies entered into this application process as partners with the spirit of collaboration versus competition, the CoC wanted to honor and encourage that by taking this approach. We trust that these agencies know their budgets best and the financial needs of the Stepping on Up Plan better than the CoC. These projects are asked thoughtfully consider if the project could continue successfully with a smaller budget. The Stepping On up applicants (listed above) have collaboratively reviewed their budgets and resubmitted proposed budgets. The attached Project Ranking & Budget shows the revised budgets amounts, which has been tentatively approved. This was approved by Heading Home Advisory Council—the CoC Governance Board on 10/11/2022.

On Thursday, July 14^th, 2022, St. Louis County Continuum of Care (MN-509) will host a public information session on the 2022 HUD CoC Special Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) process. This session will be hosted via Microsoft Teams and is open to the public (meeting details below). This session will provide details on this new funding opportunity targeting Rural & Unsheltered Homelessness from HUD. Please contact St. Louis County Continuum of Care Coordinator, Courtney Cochran (she/her) at cochranc@StLouisCountyMN.gov with any questions.

Meeting Details: Thursday, July 14^th from 11am to 12:30pm via Microsoft Teams (See attachemnt for meeting link)