Jobs Plus Initiative

The Jobs Plus program develops locally-based, job-driven approaches that increase earnings and advance employment outcomes through work readiness, employer linkages, job placement, educational advancement, technology skills, and financial literacy for residents of public housing. The place-based Jobs Plus program addresses poverty among public housing residents by incentivizing and enabling employment through earned income disregards for working residents and a set of services designed to support work including employer linkages, job placement and counseling, educational advancement, and financial counseling. Ideally, these incentives will saturate the target public housing projects (referred to as "projects" hereafter), building a culture of work and making working residents the norm.

The Jobs Plus program model comprises these three core components (further described below):

1. Employment-Related Services

2. Financial/Rent Incentive – Jobs Plus Earned Income Disregard (JPEID)

3. Community Support for Work

Applicants are encouraged to develop key partnerships to connect participants with any other needed services to remove barriers to work. An Individualized Training and Services Plan (ITSP) should be developed for each participant to establish goals and service strategies, and to track progress.

Changes from Previous NOFA

The 2020 Jobs Plus program NOFA does not modify the fundamental program design described in the 2019 NOFA.

Substantive changes are:

• FY 2015 Jobs Plus grantees (in addition to FY 2014 Jobs Plus grantees) are allowed to apply for FY 2020 funding but not for the previously funded project(s) (Section III.A.1.a).
• Added language to clarify treatment of non-contiguous and scattered sites during eligibility and rating reviews (Section III.A.2 and Section V.A.1).
• Reorganized Soundness of Approach rating factor (Section V.A.3) to clarify that criteria relates to applying the Jobs Plus model and to how the program would be administered. Redistributed some points to get the most value across the rating factors.
• Added Soundness of Approach sub-factor to highlight Quality and Consistency of the Application. The 2 points available are taken from streamlining in other factors.
• Added language to clarify to applicants the commitments they are making in the application, that they are the entity responsible if funded and that the AOR signing the application needs to have the authority to make legally binding commitments for their agency.

HUD expects to make approximately 5 awards from the funds available under this NOFA.

Estimated total funding for the Jobs Plus Program is $15 million. Maximum grant amount requests are listed in the table below, and in accordance with the number of non-elderly households in the targeted development. In calculating your grant request, please consider the information in section III.F regarding eligible activities, costs and how to estimate JPEID costs.

Award funding will be determined as follows:

Modification of NOFA

The missing text has been placed in Section I.A.1, under “3. Community Supports for Work” section, but before the “For context in developing a Jobs Plus program…” paragraph which sits right before Section I.A.2 “Changes from Previous NOFA.”

The missing language is the rest of the “Community Supports for Work” language, “Partnerships with Local Agencies” language, and “Program Goals” language (with table).  It is not rating factor language.  The deadline remains 12/1/20.

Program Office:

Public and Indian Housing

Funding Opportunity Title:

Jobs Plus Initiative

Funding Opportunity Number:

FR-6400-N-14

Primary CFDA Number:

14.895

Due Date for Applications:

12/01/2020

Opportunity Title:  Jobs Plus Initiative

FR-6400-N-14

CFDA No:  14.895

Program NOFO

FONSI

Appendix B

Grants.gov

Application Opening Date: 08/25/2020

Application Due Date: 12/01/2020

OMB Approval No:  2577-0281

Agency Contact:  JobsPlus@hud.gov  Persons with hearing or speech impairments may access this number via TTY by calling the toll-free Federal Relay Service at 800-877-8339. Please note that HUD staff cannot assist applicants in preparing their applications.