Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing) | FR 6700 N 98

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Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing) is a competitive grant program from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) designed to help communities tackle the local rules, processes, and conditions that keep affordable housing from being built, preserved, or accessed. The basic idea is that many places are not short on demand for housing, they are short on the ability to deliver housing at prices people can actually afford, largely because of barriers created (sometimes unintentionally) by zoning, land-use controls, permitting delays, outdated procedures, limited development resources, inadequate infrastructure, missing neighborhood amenities, and challenges tied to preserving existing affordable units. HUD is positioning this program as a practical tool for places that are already trying to make changes and need resources to move from planning and analysis into real policy and implementation steps that increase supply and reduce costs over time.

The need behind the program is framed as both widespread and unequal. Nationally, HUD points to the scale of cost burden: in 2021, an estimated 39.3 million households were cost-burdened, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of income on housing, including both renters and homeowners. The NOFO highlights that the burden is not evenly shared, with Black households facing particularly high affordability pressures, and with Puerto Rico experiencing especially severe cost burdens in many cases. HUD connects these affordability barriers to long-term consequences like reduced access to opportunity, weaker ability to build generational wealth, heightened eviction risk, and increased likelihood of homelessness, especially for low-income residents and underserved communities.

PRO Housing was funded through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, which provided $85 million for this competitive effort. Congress directed HUD to run the competition using the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) statutory and regulatory framework, so the program operates in a familiar structure for many local governments, with a clear emphasis on public benefit and serving low- and moderate-income people. Under the notice of funding opportunity, grantees can use funds to identify barriers and remove them by developing, evaluating, and implementing housing policy plans; improving housing strategies; and taking actions that facilitate affordable housing production and preservation. In other words, the grant is not just for writing a plan, but for helping communities do the work of reforming systems and practices that slow down or prevent housing outcomes.

Eligible applicants include state governments, local governments (such as counties and cities or townships), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and multijurisdictional entities. This eligibility is meant to reflect how housing markets and regulatory systems often cross city boundaries, and how regional coordination can matter for infrastructure, transit, job access, and fair housing outcomes.

HUD lays out six core goals for the competition. These include awarding funds fairly and effectively; elevating promising practices that remove barriers while preventing displacement; institutionalizing ongoing state and local analysis and implementation of equitable and resilient housing approaches; providing technical assistance that helps communities meet Consolidated Plan requirements to identify and address housing barriers; affirmatively furthering fair housing by dismantling barriers that perpetuate segregation or restrict access to well-resourced areas; and promoting collaboration and innovation among jurisdictions, researchers, advocates, and other stakeholders. Taken together, these goals signal that HUD is looking for more than one-off projects. The agency wants communities to build lasting capacity and governance habits that keep producing affordable housing results after the grant period ends.

In terms of what HUD will prioritize, the NOFO emphasizes two main factors: demonstrated progress and commitment to overcoming local barriers, and an acute need for housing affordable to households below 100 percent of area median income (AMI). HUD also strongly encourages applicants to directly address land-use regulations, permitting, and procedural bottlenecks, since these are common choke points that limit supply. Proposals are expected to show how activities will promote equity, support access to transit and services, strengthen resilience to natural and environmental hazards, and incorporate community input. The intent is to make housing more available and affordable while also improving where housing is located and how well it connects people to opportunity.

A major throughline in PRO Housing is the requirement to administer the grant in a way that affirmatively furthers fair housing (AFFH). In this context, AFFH is not treated as a simple nondiscrimination promise. HUD describes it as taking meaningful actions to overcome patterns of segregation and remove barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics. That includes addressing disparities in housing needs and opportunity, promoting truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws. HUD further notes it will prioritize efforts that expand affordable housing in ways that promote desegregation, increase access to well-resourced areas for groups that have been systematically denied access, or reduce the concentration of affordable housing in under-resourced neighborhoods while increasing overall housing choice.

Key program details from the opportunity listing include that it is a discretionary grant under the community development and housing activity category (CFDA 14.023), offered by HUD, with an award ceiling of up to $10,000,000 and an expectation of roughly 20 awards. The opportunity was posted September 7, 2023, with an application deadline of October 30, 2023 (11:59:59 PM Eastern). Overall, PRO Housing is structured to reward communities that can show both real housing need and a credible, implementable strategy for removing the local barriers that keep affordable housing from being built or preserved, while aligning those reforms with equity and fair housing outcomes.

• The US Department of Housing and Urban Development in the community development, housing sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO Housing)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 14.023.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 07, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 30, 2023 The application deadline is 115959 PM Eastern time on. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 20 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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