Grants to USA public housing authorities, local government agencies, and tribes to improve local neighborhoods in struggling communities. Interested applicants are advised that required registrations may take several weeks to complete. Funding is intended to support activities that revitalize public and assisted housing, enhance conditions in distressed neighborhoods, and improve the health, education, and employment of households.

The Choice Neighborhoods program leverages significant public and private dollars to support locally driven strategies that address struggling neighborhoods with severely distressed public and/or HUD-assisted housing through a comprehensive approach to neighborhood transformation. Local leaders, residents, and other stakeholders, such as public housing authorities, cities, schools, police, business owners, nonprofits, and private developers, come together to create and implement a plan that revitalizes distressed HUD housing and addresses the challenges in the surrounding neighborhood. The program helps communities transform neighborhoods by redeveloping severely distressed public and/or HUD-assisted housing and catalyzing critical improvements in the neighborhood. To this end, Choice Neighborhoods is focused on three core goals: 

1. Housing: Replace distressed public and assisted housing with high-quality mixed-income housing that is well-managed and responsive to the needs of the surrounding neighborhood; 
   
2. People: Improve outcomes of households living in the target housing related to income and employment, health, and education; and 
3. Neighborhood: Create the conditions necessary for public and private reinvestment in distressed neighborhoods to offer the kinds of amenities and assets, including safety, good schools, and commercial activity, that are important to families’ choices about their community.

To achieve these core goals, successful applicants have in place a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization strategy, or “Transformation Plan.” This Transformation Plan is the guiding document for the revitalization of the public and/or assisted housing units, while simultaneously directing the transformation of the surrounding neighborhood and creating positive outcomes for families.

Experience shows that to successfully develop and implement the Transformation Plan, broad civic engagement is needed. Successful applicants need to work with public and private agencies, organizations (including philanthropic and civic organizations), banks and financial institutions, and individuals to gather and leverage the financial and human capital resources needed to support the sustainability of the plan. These efforts should build community support for and involvement in the development and implementation of the plan.

For details on program objectives, see https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/SPM/documents/Foa_Content_of_FR-6500-N-34.pdf#page=5.

For eligible activities, see https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/SPM/documents/Foa_Content_of_FR-6500-N-34.pdf#page=28.

For program requirements, see https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/SPM/documents/Foa_Content_of_FR-6500-N-34.pdf#page=29.