HUD and EPA are joining together to identify intermediaries to provide additional assistance to the Sustainable Communities assistance recipients. This notice announces the availability of $5.65 million for capacity support grants to be distributed in support of the programs described below.
The first purpose of the Capacity Building for Sustainable Communities Program is to assemble a collection of capacity building service providers to work directly with the FY2010, and FY2011 HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning and Community Challenge grant recipients, HUD Preferred Sustainability Status Communities, and EPA Sustainable Community Technical Assistance recipients and Brownfield Area Wide Planning grant recipients.
The second purpose of the Program is to build a national coalition and leadership network of the Sustainable Communities Grantees. The purpose of the network will be to facilitate the exchange of successful strategies, lessons learned, emerging tools and public engagement strategies, and approaches for avoiding or minimizing pitfalls.
The identified intermediary organizations must demonstrate significant knowledge, skills, and experience and a cohesive plan for delivering the specific skills and tactics necessary to build the capacity of Sustainable Communities Grantees to fulfill the goals of the Sustainable Communities program. Each grantee will be expected to deliver capacity building support to communities across the United States.