Alternatives to Kinship Navigator Programs: Evaluations

The Continuum of Care (CoC) Program is designed to:promote a community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness;provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, States, Indian Tribes or Tribally Designated Housing Entities [as defined in section 4 of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 (25 U.S.C. 4103) (TDHEs)], and local governments to quickly rehouse individuals and families experiencing homelessness, persons experiencing trauma or a lack of safety related to, or fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, and youth experiencing homelessness while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused by homelessness;promote access to, and effective utilization of, mainstream programs and programs funded with State or local resources; andoptimize self-sufficiency among individuals and families experiencing homelessness.The goal of the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) is to support the development and implementation of a coordinated community approach to preventing and ending youth homelessness and sharing that experience with and mobilizing communities around the country toward the same end. The population to be served by the demonstration program is youth ages 24 and younger who are experiencing homelessness, including unaccompanied and pregnant or parenting youth.

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.​

To support the Administration for Children and Families" initiative, A Home for Every Child, the Children"s Bureau will award one grant to establish the Foster Parents Network Analytics Hub (HUB) to achieve a foster home-to-child ratio of more than 1:1 in every state by 2029. The HUB will advance the goal by providing states with advanced analytics tools and intensive technical assistance to optimize their foster parent networks.This national demonstration project under Section 426 of the Social Security Act, the HUB will develop a secure, accessible analytics platform integrated with state Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System and Comprehensive Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS/CCWIS). It will also deliver rapid technical assistance to help states analyze foster home dynamics, identify capacity gaps, develop targeted retention strategies, and improve placement matching. This initiative exemplifies ACF's commitment to results and evidence by focusing on measurable outcomes, using data and proven practices to improve performance, and ensuring efficient use of taxpayer dollars through rigorous performance monitoring.This five-year cooperative agreement will establish the HUB, prioritizing immediate deployment, measurable impact, and sustainable capacity building.

Cooperative agreements under the Alzheimer"s Disease Programs Initiative (ADPI)- State Programs for Dementia-Specific Respite Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to expand and strengthen additional supports for family caregivers by providing dementia-specific respite services delivered through the National Aging Services Network (State Units on Aging (SUA), Area Agencies on Aging (AAA), and aging network service providers). The program is designed to provide respite relief in support of unpaid family caregivers of people with a probable diagnosis of Alzheimer"s disease or related dementia (ADRD) who need access or additional access to respite care or related services. The primary goal is to reduce caregiver burden and delay institutionalization of people with a probable diagnosis of ADRD through the availability and delivery of dementia-specific respite services. Through this demonstration grant opportunity, states will partner with Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) to coordinate and provide respite services for caregivers with a focus on dementia-specific respite services comparable to existing services provided under the Older Americans Act (OAA). Grant funds will be awarded to SUAs, which will distribute the funds to AAAs to carry out program implementation.Dementia-specific respite services will be made available to eligible unpaid family caregivers of people with a probable diagnosis of ADRD, as well as those under age 60 with younger-onset dementia of any age who would otherwise meet eligibility requirements under OAA funded programs. Participating SUAs will establish and define the terms and conditions governing the implementation of their dementia-specific respite program. Successful applications will include an independent third-party evaluation to assess and document the program"s impact on participating, community-residing unpaid family caregivers and individuals living with dementia.

The Office of Community Services (OCS), within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), intends to issue a funding opportunity for a cooperative agreement for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Strengthening CSBG Outcomes: Performance Management, Data Collection, and Compliance Support.This NOFO will promote a national competition to identify one organization to support CSBG states, territories, and eligible entities with performance management activities, including data collection and reporting as well as approaches to remedy issues of non-compliance resulting from monitoring visits. This cooperative agreement builds on a national infrastructure for CSBG performance excellence by supporting data quality, outcome measurement, and the annual Report to Congress. This investment emphasizes practical capacity building—enabling states, territories, and eligible entities to translate data into actionable insights designed to inform and improve CSBG program outcomes.This cooperative agreement builds off a previous NOFO and enhances the CSBG Performance Management Framework by emphasizing training and technical assistance (T/TA) that helps the CSBG network translate data into actionable insights designed to improve CSBG impacts, outcomes, and accountability.

The Personal Responsibility Education Program-Innovative Strategies (PREIS) builds the evidence base for adolescent pregnancy prevention interventions that are effective with high risk and vulnerable youth populations and addresses gaps with new promising program models. PREIS funds rigorous impact evaluations of innovative youth pregnancy prevention interventions that target services to high-risk, vulnerable, and culturally under-represented youth populations, including youth in foster care/child welfare settings, juvenile justice, victims of trafficking, youth who have runaway or experience homelessness, youth with HIV/AIDS, expectant youth who are under 21 years of age and their partners, parenting youth who are under 21 years of age and their partners, and youth residing in areas with high birth rates for youth. Projects must implement at least three of the six congressionally mandated adulthood preparation subjects (APS) which include: 1) healthy relationships, 2) adolescent development, 3) financial literacy, 4) parent-child communication, 5) educational and career success, and 6) healthy life skills. Projects are required to conduct rigorous impact evaluations (randomized controlled trials or quasi-experimental design studies with assignment to treatment or control group). PREIS evaluations must be conducted by an independent, third-party evaluator.Interventions to be evaluated under this funding opportunity are expected to have compelling, positive preliminary evidence from previous research, but have not been evaluated through a randomized control trial or quasi-experimental design. Interventions must have a well-described theory of change, with intervention materials already developed.

The Office of Community Services (OCS) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) will support a funding opportunity for six (6) three-year cooperative agreements for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Communities of Practice (CoP).Six CoPs will be established to provide training and technical assistance (TTA). These CoPs will include CSBG-funded states, territories, and tribes, and CSBG state associations and eligible entities. The specialized TTA must: account for regional, state, city, county, tribal, and community characteristics (i.e., jurisdictional levels, demographic categories, socioeconomic tiers, community resources, etc.); be based on evidence-informed TTA models specific to the assigned CoPs; and include scalable approaches that states, territories, state associations, tribes, and CSBG-eligible entities can implement to support individuals and families with low incomes as they progress towards economic security.The six award recipients will be required to provide their respective grouping of CSBG states, territories, tribes, state associations, and eligible entities with capacity-building that creates scalable, evidence-informed interventions that improve earned income, employment stability, and asset development for families with low incomes through coordinated service delivery and systems alignment.TTA developed under these CoPs will advance community-level strategies that prevent and reduce barriers to attaining economic mobility; education and workforce development; transportation; and access to safe and stable housing, including support for the A Home for Every Child administrative priority. Each CoP is expected to invest in partnerships to support data-driven decision-making and infrastructure that strengthens service delivery, enhances reporting and compliance, and reduces opportunities for fraud, waste, and abuse across the Network.