Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) Competitive Grant: Housing as an Intervention to Fight AIDS

Collectively, our local, domestic, and global communities have committed to ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic through strategies and initiatives including Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America, the HIV National Strategic Plan, and Getting to Zero. With aggressive goals set to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic under each of these initiatives and strategies, all available resources must be used to achieve these goals. The Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) program has the opportunity to take part in these efforts by using housing as an effective structural intervention to end HIV/AIDS epidemic. Grants funded under this NOFO will enhance local and federal efforts to end the U.S. HIV/AIDS epidemic.This NOFO announces the availability of funding under the authority for HOPWA Special Projects of National Significance at Section 854(c)(5) of the AIDS Housing Opportunity Act (42 U.S.C. 12903(c)(5)). This funding will provide communities an opportunity to create and implement new projects that align with initiatives aimed at ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and elevate housing as an effective structural intervention in ending the epidemic.HUD is seeking projects with exemplary and innovative qualities, including community-level coordination, data collection with emphasis on stable housing and positive health outcomes, culturally competent approaches to providing housing and services, and a systemic approach to advance equity in underserved communities that can serve as a national place-based model.Each project must also be designed for the Grantee to achieve the following six required project objectives: Implement and document housing and services models for low-income persons living with HIV and their families that are innovative and replicable in other similar localities or nationally; Increase alignment with new or existing local initiatives or strategies to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic by elevating housing as an effective structural intervention; Improve coordination among local housing and service providers and use of available community resources; Increase the amount of quality data collected and used for data-driven decision making with an emphasis on stable housing, positive health outcomes, and racial equity; Assess and document replicable practices that ensure equitable access and culturally competent approaches to providing housing and services for populations of persons living with HIV experiencing service gaps; and Prioritize sustainable, effective, and equitable approaches to providing housing and services to persons living with HIV and their families that can be continued past the funded project’s period of performance.Each successful applicant under this NOFO will received a one-time, non-renewable grant to fund housing assistance and supportive services for eligible beneficiaries, coordination and planning activities, and grants management and administration. Reporting requirements under this NOFO are more comprehensive than traditional HOPWA program reporting. Grantees will be required to collect client-level data to produce a programmatic HIV Housing Care Continuum Model at the end of each operating year. At the end of the grant period of performance, each grantee must also develop a Housing as an Intervention to Fight AIDS (HIFA) Model, consisting of promising practices for and lessons learned in using housing as a structural intervention to end the AIDS epidemic. Each HIFA Model will be shared with the public, and lessons learned through these grantee efforts will help inform national and community policy and actions