Department of Housing and Urban Development December 29, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice provides prospective applicants for HUD's competitive funding with the opportunity to become familiar with the General Section of HUD's FY2009 NOFAs, in advance of publication of any FY2009 NOFAs. This year, HUD plans to publish its NOFAs as they are approved for publication and not in a combined SuperNOFA. HUD believes that by making this change, the NOFAs will be available earlier in the fiscal year. To assist applicants in this transformation, HUD is publishing the anticipated schedule for release of HUD's FY2009 NOFAs in Appendix A. The information regarding NOFA programs and schedules is subject to the availability of appropriations. As HUD receives appropriations, HUD may elect to amend the anticipated dates, estimated funds available, and/or program requirements that may appear in the published NOFAs to reflect HUD's FY2009 appropriations act, when enacted by Congress. Any amendment to HUD published NOFAs will be made available to the public through a Federal Register publication and published on https://www.grants.gov. Applicants are urged to sign up for Grants.gov's RSS Feed service to receive any changes to this General Section to HUD's FY2009 NOFAs. Information about the RSS Feed Service can be found at https://www07.grants.gov/help/rss.jsp. Detailed instructions on use of the RSS Feed can be found later in this General Section. Applicants are advised to become familiar with the requirements of this General Section, particularly with applicant Grants.gov registration requirements and submission instructions. Submission instructions must be adhered to in order to have a successful submission. Applicants are also advised to provide copies of the General Section to all persons that will be working on the application. HUD has found too often that the Program Section and the application are passed along, but not the General Section instructions; thus placing Authorized Organization Representatives (AORs) at a disadvantage in not having all the information needed for submission. HUD will continue to require that applicants submit their applications electronically via Grants.gov. In FY2008, HUD switched to Adobe Forms application packages, available on Grants.gov. The Adobe Forms packages take more processing power, are larger in size, and use more memory than the earlier packages used by Grants.gov. Applicants are advised to pay careful attention to the submission instructions contained in this notice. Failure to do so will result in difficulty in uploading your application and ``VirusDetect'' rejection notices. The Adobe Forms packages are compatible with Windows XP Windows and Windows Vista operating systems, Apple Macintosh computers, and Microsoft Office 2007. Please carefully read the instructions in this notice regarding use of Adobe Forms. To submit an application via Grants.gov, new users will be required to complete a five-step registration process, which can take 2 to 4 weeks to complete. The process includes ensuring that information provided for the applicant organization to Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) for your DUNS number matches information previously provided by your organization and contained in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records. If there is a discrepancy in the information, the registration cannot be completed until discrepancy issues are resolved. Applicants that have previously completed the registration process have to renew or update their registration in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR). The renewal/update process confirms that the registration information is still accurate and allows organizations to make any appropriate changes. During the renewal/update process, the CCR will check the D&B information against the IRS records for the applicant organization. If there are discrepancies, the renewal/update cannot be completed until the discrepancies are resolved. Please allow adequate time to resolve any registration issues. Failure to complete the renewal/update process in the CCR before the CCR registration expires will result in an applicant having to repeat the five steps of the registration process. If an applicant changes the eBusiness Point of Contact in the CCR registration, it should make sure the new eBusiness Point of Contact has also granted permission to the person submitting the application to be the AOR. To submit an eligible application to HUD, the AOR must be able to enter into a legally binding agreement on behalf of the organizational entity. Please see detailed registration instructions in Section IV.B. of this notice. HUD recommends that all prospective applicants take the time to carefully read the notice entitled ``Notice of Opportunity to Register Early and other Important Information for Electronic Application Submission via Grants.gov,'' published on December 5, 2008 (73 FR 74179). This notice is also available on HUD's Web site at https:// www.hud.gov/offices/adm/grants/fundsavail.cfm and on https:// www.Grants.gov. HUD's Early Registration notice provides step-by-step instructions for applicants who must register with Grants.gov and also provides renewal/update instructions for those who have previously registered. Prospective applicants should register or update their registration information upon publication of this notice so you are prepared when the Program Section NOFAs are published. Please note that the Continuum of Care application is submitted through the HUD eSNAPS system, not Grants.gov. Submission instructions for the eSNAPs applications will be contained in the NOFA for the Continuum of Care program. Notification of the availability of the Continuum of Care NOFA and FY2009 application, and other information, will be released via the Grants.gov Web site. HUD does not maintain a mailing list with the exception of the Continuum of Care listserv for the Continuum of Care applicant community. To join the HUD homeless assistance program listserv, go to https://www.hud.gov/subscribe/ signup.cfm?listname=Homeless%20Assistance%20Program&list=HOME LESS-ASST- L.