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.