Our Programs
Continuum of Care: What is a CoC?
In the 1990’s, the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) created the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, which funds certain types of programs for people experiencing homelessness. Under the CoC program, geographic communities organize themselves into a CoC and each CoC annually submits an application to HUD to fund projects within the CoC. In New Mexico, there is an Albuquerque CoC and a Balance of State CoC, which covers all parts of New Mexico except for Albuquerque. All applicants must apply as part of one of these CoCs. The Albuquerque and Balance of State CoCs are both coordinated by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.
HUD’s concept for the Continuum of Care is that each CoC should have a continuum of services available to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness, including prevention, street outreach, emergency shelter, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing. The HUD CoC program does not actually fund all those activities but HUD’s expectation is that each CoC will engage in ongoing planning to ensure all these components are in place. Our CoC’s ability to continue receiving CoC funding, especially new CoC funding, is partially dependent on the extent to which we have these components in place.
CoC grant funds can be used for acquisition of a building or site, construction, rehabilitation, leasing, operation of the project and supportive services for the project. Because the funds are so flexible and the leasing, operating and supportive services funding is renewable year after year, these grants work very well to start new projects.
Potential applicants should be aware that the federal law governing these grants mandates that 30% of the funding should go toward permanent supportive housing for homeless persons with disabilities. Because there are so many transitional housing projects in the Balance of State CoC already, the bulk of new projects funded in recent years have been permanent supportive housing. In the Albuquerque CoC, we have only been able to fund one new permanent supportive housing project each year.
For more information about the Albuquerque Continuum of Care contact Lisa Huval at (505) 217-9570 or Lisa-H@nmceh.org. You can also review the attached fact sheet for more information about the Albuquerque CoC. For more information about the Balance of State CoC contact Mark Oldknow at (505) 982-9000 or Mark-O@nmceh.org.
Click the links below to review the recently completed HUD Continuum of Care "Exhibit 1" submissions. These are the general sections of the annual HUD grant application and there is one for each Continuum in New Mexico, Albuquerque Metro and the Balance of the State. Individual applicant agencies also submit specific "Exhibit 2" applications that detail their programs; please contact us directly if you would like to obtain copies of any recent Exhibit 2 application.
2009 Albuquerque CoC Exhibit 1
2009 NM Balance of State CoC Exhibit 1
2010 Albuquerque CoC Exhibit 1
2010 Balance of State CoC Exhibit 1
HUD Links about CoC
Financial Policies and Procedures TEMPLATE (posted 7 July 2009)
This is an editable template that agencies can use to draft their own Financial Policies and Procedures to meet HUD grant agreement requirements.
The HUD Homelessness Resource Exchange is your one-stop shop for information and resources for providers who are assisting persons who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, including "Quick Links" for CoCs and Providers.