FY 2026 Continuum of Care Competition and Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program Grants NOFO

The Wilson Fish Bridge to Employment Program (WF B2E) provides funds to ensure recipients of Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) can access required employment services as outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act. ORR"s primary strategy for ensuring access to these required services in most states is through the Refugee Support Services (RSS) program. Beginning in FY 2027, RSS will no longer be available in select states. The WF B2E program provides required employment training and placement services, as well as English language training, to recipients of RCA in the states where RSS will no longer operate. Services provided under this program are only available to individuals within the first 36 months after they either arrive in the United States or within the first 36 months they receive an ORR-eligible status. Approved projects will fund required services either directly or through subawards. Details on the states in which this program will operate will be available in the forthcoming NOFO.

1. NOFO HighlightsThe Youth Homelessness NOFO provides competitive awards to eligible applicants under two different programs-Youth Homelessness System Improvement (YHSI) grants- Assistance Listing Number (ALN) 14.277Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP)- ALN 14.276Under the YHSI grants, HUD will make awards to selected communities to support them in establishing and implementing a response system for youth homelessness or for improving their existing response system. HUD will select approximately 49 communities for YHSI grants.Under the YHDP, HUD will provide funding to communities to implement housing and supportive services projects. HUD anticipates selecting between 26 and 50 communities, with a priority for communities with substantial rural populations in up to sixteen locations.Separate from this NOFO, technical assistance will be available to assist selected communities implement and improve their YHSI and YHDP projects. HUD expects communities to fully participate in any evaluation activities conducted by HUD beginning no earlier than the award announcement.See Section III for additional information about this NOFO.

As President Trump said in his Executive Order on Removing Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Home Construction (March 13, 2026), The American dream of homeownership depends on a dynamic housing market in which a varied inventory of new homes is built and renovated each year. Layers of unnecessary regulatory barriers, slow permitting processes, and onerous mandates at all levels of government have delayed construction, restricted development, and driven up the costs of new housing. These constraints have made housing less affordable for many Americans.It is the policy of my Administration to reduce regulatory barriers to building homes and to steward taxpayer dollars in a manner that promotes housing affordability.HUD's PRO Housing program rewards communities that have taken steps to remove regulatory barriers to building and preserving homes by providing funding to further expand affordable housing, particularly homeownership opportunities and housing located in Opportunity Zones and rural communities.HUD is issuing this Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) PRO Housing NOFO under the authority of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, which provided $50 million for competitive grant funding for state and local governments, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and multijurisdictional entities. The Appropriations Act requires HUD to award grants using the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) framework. As with all CDBG assistance, the priority is to serve low- and moderate-income people and households. HUD shall select applicants that demonstrate: (1) progress and a commitment to eliminating local barriers to facilitate the increase in affordable housing production and preservation, through enactment or implementation of less restrictive zoning, land use, or permitting laws and regulations; (2) an acute need for housing affordable to households with incomes below 100 percent of the area median income; and (3) a commitment to create new homeownership units before the expiration of the funding performance period.Applicants and grantees are reminded of the President's Executive Orders on Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (January 221, 2025) and Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferences (January 20, 2025) and their applicability to PRO Housing funding. PRO Housing funding may not be used to fund "illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name 'diversity, equity, and inclusion.'"In addition to thoroughly reviewing this NOFO, applicants are strongly encouraged to monitor HUD's PRO Housing website for information about general updates, Frequently Asked Questions, and PRO Housing webinars.HUD has four goals for this competition:Decrease the cost and increase the supply of affordable housing, especially in Opportunity Zones and rural communities.Remove barriers to affordable housing, removal of which will lead to constructing or rehabilitating more units, reducing time to produce units, and unlocking land that can be used for affordable housing units.Reward jurisdictions that have enacted laws and regulations that will lead to more affordable housing production and preservation.Increase opportunities for affordable homeownership by reducing administrative and structural barriers.

This program will fund projects focused on technology-enabled strategies that improve adoptive matching, placement, and permanency for children in foster care awaiting adoption. The funds, awarded to four regional centers, will be used to design, implement and evaluate these strategies.These centers will focus on children with an adoption permanency goal or who are legally free for adoption due to child welfare involvement. Centers will partner with state, territorial, tribal, and local child welfare agencies and courts to develop secure, accessible technology solutions that improve how families are matched with children in need of permanent homes. Proposed solutions must be interoperable with existing systems and may include tools such as data-informed recruitment support, AI-assisted matching, and predictive analytics.Each center will strengthen data infrastructure, support continuous quality improvement, and develop scalable resources that jurisdictions nationwide can adopt. ACF will define four national service regions to ensure full U.S. coverage. Centers will provide regional innovation support, training, technical assistance, and dissemination of best practices while collaborating nationally on shared learning.Applicants will be expected to demonstrate measurable improvements in match timeliness, placement stability, and adoption finalization outcomes.

The Runaway and Homeless Youth Training, Technical Assistance, and Capacity Building Center (RHYTTAC) provides direct training and technical assistance to existing RHY award recipients and subrecipients to enhance their efforts to successfully implement FYSB-funded projects. FYSB expects to award one cooperative agreement to strengthen and build the capacity of runaway and homeless youth and other youth-serving professionals and service providers across the nation by:Developing relevant and interactive training products for in-person and virtual adaptation.Disseminating evidenced-based, evidence-informed, and best practices related to issues impacting youth who have runaway from home, youth and young adults experiencing homelessness, and youth and young adults at risk of becoming homeless.Providing targeted technical assistance to RHY award recipients and youth-serving organizations to address current and potential needs.Leading coordination activities among RHY award recipients and other RHY funded partner organizations.

​​The Division of Runaway and Homeless Youth will award one cooperative agreement on a competitive basis for a period of three years to operate the National Communication System (NCS) for Runaway and Homeless Youth Program. The NCS is a dedicated toll-free, US national communication system that provides information, referral services, crisis intervention, prevention approaches, and other supportive services to vulnerable, at-risk, and runaway and homeless youth, and their families or legal guardians. The purpose of the NCS is to a) prevent youth from running away and becoming homeless, b) link youth with a family member or guardian, and/or an available resource that can provide and/or assist the youth in acquiring needed services, and c) increase prevention education to reduce runaway incidents and youth homelessness.​

The purpose of the Lead Hazard Reduction (LHR) Grant Program is to maximize the number of children under the age of six protected from lead poisoning by assisting states, Native American Tribes, cities, counties/parishes, or other units of local government in undertaking comprehensive programs to identify and control lead-based paint hazards in eligible privately-owned rental or owner-occupied housing, which must be target housing. In addition, there is Healthy Homes Supplemental funding available that is intended to enhance the lead-based paint hazard control activities by comprehensively identifying and addressing other housing hazards that affect occupant health in homes with lead-based paint hazards being treated under the grant.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) announces up to $10 million to support a National Fund Manager (NFM) to design and manage a Lead-Safe and Healthy Homes Financing Demonstration (the Fund). The Fund will be a national platform to pool public and private capital to accelerate the reduction of residential lead exposure, particularly childhood lead poisoning, and improve housing-related health conditions in low-income communities ("lead-safe and healthy homes activities").While HUD and EPA programs have addressed lead and other environmental hazards in many homes, progress remains slow relative to the scale of need. For example, since 1993, HUD has remediated lead hazards in over 230,000 low-income housing units, but tens of millions of U.S. households continue to face risk from lead and additional residential environmental stressors. Expanding access to private capital alongside public funding is critical to increasing the pace and scale of remediation.Traditional home repair financing remains difficult to access due to strict underwriting, high denial rates, and lender risk concerns, leaving many older homes in disrepair. The Fund will build upon successful local models that combine public and private resources and expand this approach nationally by aggregating capital and supporting local financing programs.The NFM will be responsible for leveraging the initial $10 million in public funds to raise private capital investments, structuring financing mechanisms, and providing technical assistance to support the Fund's operations. The NFM will also be responsible for the distribution of the funds through eligible activities by using no more than $1 million of the federal award for administrative activities, while deploying the remaining capital through loans, grants, and other financial products that flow to state, regional, and local governments and nonprofit organizations selected by the NFM. The NFM will select and enter into agreements with organizations, which will in turn provide financing for conducting lead-safe and healthy homes activities in homes of low-income homeowners and homes owned by small landlords, in low-income communities. HUD will maintain oversight through review of Fund structure, performance, and compliance rather than by participating in investment selection decisions.The organizations selected for funding by the NFM will ensure that the financing conditions require use of appropriately qualified contractors, laboratories, and financial entities in accordance with applicable Federal, state, and local requirements and this NOFO. The NFM will establish and oversee compliance, reporting, and quality assurance processes to ensure that lead-safe and healthy homes activities are performed and financed in accordance with program requirements.

The Healthy Homes Production Program (HHP) is part of HUD"s overall Healthy Homes Initiative launched in 1999. The program takes a comprehensive approach to addressing multiple childhood diseases and injuries in the home by focusing on housing-related hazards in a coordinated fashion, rather than addressing a single hazard at a time. The program builds upon HUD"s successful Lead Hazard Control programs to expand the Department"s efforts to address a variety of high-priority environmental health and safety hazards. Applicants receiving a Healthy Homes Production award under this NOFO will be expected to accomplish the following objectives:a. Maximize both the number of vulnerable residents protected from housing-related environmental health and safety hazards and the number of housing units where these hazards are controlled;b. Identify and remediate housing-related health and safety hazards in privately owned, low-income rental and/or owner-occupied housing, especially in units and/or buildings where families with children, older adults 62 years and older, or families with persons with disabilities reside;c. Promote cost-effective and efficient healthy home methods and approaches that can be replicated and sustained;d. Support public education and outreach that furthers the goal of protecting children and other vulnerable populations from housing-related health and safety hazards;e. Build local capacity to operate sustainable programs that will prevent and control housing-related environmental health and safety hazards in low- and very low-income residences, and develop a professional workforce that is trained in healthy homes assessment and principles;f. Promote integration of this grant program with housing rehabilitation, property maintenance, weatherization, healthy homes initiatives, local lead-based paint hazard control programs, health and safety programs, and energy efficiency improvement activities and programs;g. Build and enhance partner resources to develop the most cost-effective methods for identifying and controlling key housing-related environmental health and safety hazards;h. Promote collaboration, data sharing, and targeting between health and housing departments;i. Ensure to the greatest extent feasible that job training, employment, contracting, and other economic opportunities generated by this grant will be directed to low- and very-low-income persons, particularly those who are recipients of government assistance for housing, and to businesses that provide economic opportunities to low- and very low-income persons in the area in which the project is located. For more information, see 24 CFR 135 (Section 3).

The overall purpose of the Older Adult Home Modification Program (OAHMP) is to assist experienced nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, and public housing authorities in undertaking comprehensive programs that make safety and functional home modification repairs and renovations to meet the needs of low-income seniors. The goal of the home modification program is to enable low-income elderly persons to remain in their homes through low-cost, low barrier, high impact home modifications to reduce older adults" risk of falling, improve general safety, increase accessibility, and to improve their functional abilities in their home. This will enable older adults to remain in their homes, that is, to "age in place," rather than move to nursing homes or other assisted care facilities.