The Mississippi Balance of State Continuum of Care is seeking Letters of Intent for New/ Renewal Projects for possible inclusion in the MS Balance of State Continuum of Care’s FY2024 Consolidated Application for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care (CoC) Program, also known as the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO).

Each year, the MS Balance of State Continuum of Care competes with other CoCs across the country to secure federal funds to help end homelessness through HUD’s Continuum of Care Program. HUD allows new projects to be funded through either CoC and DV bonus funds or re- allocation funds. The total funds available for new projects will be determined based on the final new bonus amounts, as set by HUD, plus any funds approved for reallocation by the MS Balance of State CoC Governing Council (reallocated funds are those funds designated by the Governing Council to be redistributed from existing projects to new projects).

Bonus funding is NOT guaranteed. HUD determines the amount of bonus funding available each year. Due to the limited amount of bonus funds available, new projects are selected through a multi-tier ranking and review process with criteria approved by the MS Balance of State CoC Governing Council Rank and Review Committee. If a new project is ultimately selected to be included in the FY2024 NOFO Consolidated Application, this is still not a guarantee that the new project will receive the requested funding as final CoC Competition Awards are determined by HUD. The FY2024 NOFO Competition and formal application process is TBA.

Eligible Applicants: Nonprofit organizations, States, local governments, and instrumentalities of State or local governments are eligible to apply for grants. For-profit entities are not eligible to apply for grants or to be sub-recipients of grant funds.

The MS Balance of State CoC encourages proposals from applicants who have never previously received CoC funds as well as from applicants who are currently receiving or have in the past received CoC funds. If there are not enough qualified applicants, the CoC reserves the right to recruit new applicants.

Letters of Intent are due by July 26, 2024, and may be emailed to Marika Baliko at cocdirector@msbos.org on or before July 26, 2024, by 4:30 pm. – Letters of Intent will be reviewed, and projects approved by the MS Balance of State CoC Governing Council will be invited to move forward in the local competition to submit a project application in e-Snaps.

Agencies submitting a Letter of Intent for a renewal project should indicate if there will be any changes and if they would like to reallocate any funds voluntarily. For agencies submitting a Letter of Intent for a new project, it would be helpful to include the agency name, their mission, and their plans for use of the funding.

View the letter below for the official announcement: